A diving catch that ended a season
Michael Toglia goes under the knife today. The Cincinnati Reds outfielder and first baseman is having season-ending surgery on his right shoulder, four days after he wrecked it chasing a fly ball.
The damage happened Friday against Arizona. Toglia started in left field and laid out in the first inning for a Geraldo Perdomo fly ball. He came up in pain, flipped the ball away and handed the position to TJ Friedl. Cincinnati placed him on the 10-day injured list on Sunday and promoted utility man Ivan Johnson from Triple-A Louisville.
An MRI on Monday returned a torn labrum. Reds team doctor Tim Kremchek operates.
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Francona did not see it coming
The diagnosis caught the clubhouse off guard, manager included.
“That kid, he swore he was going to play (soon),” Terry Francona said. “When I saw him in the trainer’s room the next day, he was trying to do stuff. That’s pretty amazing to me.”
Toglia had spent most of the year waiting for the call. He hit .273 with 22 home runs and 65 RBIs over 97 games at Louisville before Cincinnati brought him up on Aug. 11. The bat stayed in Kentucky. Ten games with the Reds produced three hits in 26 at-bats, no home runs and a single RBI.
Power that has never settled
The shoulder closes a season that gave Toglia 10 big league games. It also freezes a career that keeps flashing power without holding a job. He spent the previous four seasons with the Colorado Rockies and cleared 25 home runs in 116 games in 2024, then lost the everyday role.
Across 290 major league games he owns a .198 average, a .275 on-base percentage and a .384 slugging mark, with 42 home runs and 109 RBIs. The 42 homers explain why clubs keep calling. The .198 explains why the calls keep stopping.
Johnson now covers the corner spots while the Reds work through the rest of the schedule, and Toglia starts a rehab that runs into the winter.
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