Cincinnati Reds: Delayed start puts Eugenio Suárez in Opening Day lineup

Cincinnati Reds fans were afraid that Eugenio Suárez may have missed the start of the 2020 season. With the delayed start, it’s a lock he’ll make the roster.

Baseball fans are pacing the floor waiting for an announcement regarding the start of the 2020 season. For now, the season has been pushed back until mid-May and likely later. While the delayed start is not ideal, it has given Cincinnati Reds third baseman Eugenio Suárez a chance to recover from an injured shoulder.

Suárez had offseason shoulder surgery following a swimming pool accident. The former All-Star had yet to appear in a spring training game before play was halted, but was slated to be the team’s designated hitter during a Cactus League the day before the sport was shut down.

Despite the additions of Mike Moustakas and Nick Castellanos, Eugenio Suárez is still the Cincinnati Reds best player. Last season, Geno set the record for home runs by a Venezuelan-born player with 49 round-trippers. Suárez finished just behind the MLB leader, Pete Alonso (53) for the most home runs in the league and hit .271/.358/.572 with 103 RBIs.

Reds manager David Bell gave an update on his injured star yesterday. The news sounds exceedingly promising. Bell was holding out hope that Suárez would’ve been ready for Opening Day had the season started on schedule, but now sounds very confident in Geno’s chances of being ready to start the season. Here’s what Bell had to say via MLB.com:

"“He’s feeling great. He’s starting to resume his throwing and fielding and swinging. He’s kind of been transitioning to where he’s been trying to get. He’s right on track. … We were pretty confident he had a strong chance to be ready for Opening Day. Now he’ll have a lot more time and it’s even more of a strong possibility for sure.”"

That is great news for the Cincinnati Reds, as the shorten-season will require all hands on deck. While Major League Baseball is hopeful to get in a full compliment of 162 games, that is beginning to look more unrealistic by the day. Less games will put more emphasis on a strong start and the margin for error will be even less.

The Reds have gotten off to terrible starts the past two seasons. Every fan remembers the 3-18 start in 2018, but last year wasn’t much better with a 1-8 record out of the gate. Having Eugenio Suárez available to begin the season will certainly help  Cincinnati’s quest to get off to a fast start.

Bell gave positive updates on other players as well, saying that Freddy Galvis and Josh VanMeter are at 100% and Nick Senzel will ease into a throwing program next week. A Reds team at full-strength to begin the season is exactly what this delayed start is likely to provide.