In all of the excitement of the trade deadline yesterday, one piece of news went unnoticed; Edinson Volquez suffered a setback during his rehab. The expected follow up to that news was announced by the Reds Saturday; Volquez will undergo an unspecified elbow surgery on Monday. Whatever the procedure is, it seems likely that Volquez, who's only thrown one inning since May 16, is done for the season, especially with the Reds dropping out of contention after losing 10 of their last 11. The big question that remains is what sort of surgery Volquez will require and how much time he'll miss next year. If he does need Tommy John surgery (which has been mentioned as a possibility), he'll be out until this time in 2010 at the very least and he could potentially miss all of the season, depending on how his rehab goes. That's all speculation, of course, the Reds are being vague and we may not know what's actually wrong with Volquez's elbow until he comes out of the operating room on Monday.
What we do know is that this is extremely bad news for a team that just went out and picked up a $10 million third baseman for 2010. With Volquez, Johnny Cueto, and Aaron Harang, the conventional thinking has been that if the Reds could get a big bat or two to pair with Joey Votto (and probably Jay Bruce, depending on his maturation), that the Reds could be surprise contenders next year. The pickup of Scott Rolen yesterday was made with that goal in mind. If Volquez is to miss a significant amount of time, though, that path will be considerably more difficult. That the announcement of Volquez's surgery came a day after the trade deadline seems fitting; the Padres announced the release of Mark Prior this afternoon, likely signaling the end of his career. Whether it's fair or not, Volquez is now Prior's spiritual heir on the tree of pitchers who've pitched for Dusty Baker and suffered subsequent arm troubles.
