CINCINNATI (AP) \u2014 Third baseman Ke\u2019Bryan Hayes was activated off the injured list by the Cincinnati Reds before their game Friday night against the Chicago Cubs.<\/p>\n
The Reds also placed Matt McLain on the 10-day injured list due to a left calf strain. The move is retroactive to July 8.<\/p>\n
Hayes missed 42 games due to a bulging disc in the lower area of his back. He was acquired from the Pittsburgh Pirates near the trade deadline last year and won his second NL Gold Glove.<\/p>\n
However, Hayes has struggled at the plate this season, batting .142 with two home runs and five RBIs in 42 games. Hayes is hoping that some work he did in Arizona building back his swing will lead to improvement the rest of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never really been a drill guy, but I think those have helped with kind of rewiring the brain to help my body move a certain way, because once you swing for a month, two months, three months, a certain way, it\u2019s hard to just flip a switch and change those movement patterns,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
With McLain on the IL and TJ Friedl still banged up after crashing into the wall while making a catch on Wednesday, Spencer Steer made his first big league appearance in center field in the series opener.<\/p>\n
Manager Terry Francona said he approached Steer about the possibility on Thursday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more I talked to him, he said, \u2018I can do it.\u2019 I don\u2019t want to put guys in a position where it\u2019s unfair to them or something like that. But I think the more we talked about it, he got really excited,\u201d Francona said. \u201cHe\u2019s not going to be the go-getter out there. That\u2019s unfair, but I bet he makes the plays he\u2019s supposed to make.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI (AP) \u2014 Third baseman Ke\u2019Bryan Hayes was activated off the injured list by the Cincinnati Reds before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":748419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2400],"tags":[5,535,50,4259,5342,1401,4,9501,9496,15187,83365,536,92798,6288,1175,8167],"class_list":["post-748422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-reds","tag-baseball","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-cincinnatireds","tag-kebryan-hayes","tag-matt-mclain","tag-mlb","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40784-ap-illinois-sports-only","tag-product-40806-ap-ohio-sports-only","tag-reds","tag-reds-hayes-mclain","tag-spencer-steer","tag-terry-francona","tag-tj-friedl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116898170363326853","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=748422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/748422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/748419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=748422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=748422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=748422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}