Another gut punch for Reds bullpen as Tony Santillan hits injured list

Do you even remember how the Cincinnati Reds bullpen was supposed to look?

Emilio Pagan was set to be the closer after returning in free agency, but he’s been shelved for months after an awful hamstring strain. Pierce Johnson and Caleb Ferguson were both signed in free agency to help add depth and experience, and both of them missed nearly a month, too. Graham Ashcraft was set to use his 99 mph cutter in high leverage situations, but an elbow problem sent him to a shelf that he likely will stay on for the remainder of this bad, bad 2026 season.

Connor Phillips went from 8th inning guy and potential closer of the future to the minors due to control problems. Brandon Williamson, who began in the rotation with a likelihood of getting run as a reliever, ran into shoulder problems and a 60-day IL stint. The Reds sent Tyler Callihan to Pittsburgh in exchange for Kyle Nicolas, but Nicolas was bad enough (with enough pressure for a spare roster spot) that the team quickly DFA’d him to churn more. Lyon Richardson got his umpteenth chance, once again didn’t stick, and was DFA’d to allow another throw it at the wall and hope it sticks arm to get its opportunity.

Chase Petty is a starter acting as a reliever because, quite simply, the Reds need him to. Tejay Antone was fresh off his third Tommy John surgery and was rightfully treated with kid gloves early on, yet now stands as perhaps the only reliable, everyday arm the team has. They even scooped up Chris Paddack off the scrap heap to beg him for 22.0 IP of 6.04 ERA ball just to keep a position player from having to do that work.

This is all meant to spell out just how many hurdles the Reds have had to jump just to get to this point of the year, where they’re 5 games under .500 and buried in the NL Central standings. So, getting news that they were also set to be without Tony Santillan for the foreseeable future due to an oblique issue is just one more gut punch that they’ll be forced to endure.

The last time we saw Santillan he was spiking a wild pitch into the dirt that allowed a 2nd run to score in the 10th inning of a game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday, a 2-1 loss that was, once again, simply brutal. Brutal just appears to be what the 2026 Reds season is going to be after the inital high hopes and brilliant month of April, the kind of highs we should have always been skeptical of as longtime fans of this franchise.

The vibes simply got too good. Now? They’re about as awful as they get.