Cincinnati Reds activate Joey Votto among series of roster moves ahead of Toronto series

Ahead of the border crossing into Canada and the start of the weekend series against the Toronto Blue Jays, the Cincinnati Reds made a series of pertinent roster moves on Friday afternoon. Chief among them, obviously, is the return of Joey Votto after several weeks on the undefined injury list, though there were several other moves of note, too.

The team announced said moves on Twitter.

Joel Kuhnel, Tyler Mahle, Brandon Drury, and Albert Almora were placed on the restricted list. One is required to be vaccinated to enter into Canada from the United States these days, making that either a very timely coincidence or a bit of a tell as to which players currently on the roster haven’t yet gotten around to making such a significant commitment to playing alongside their teammates.

As a result, each of Graham Ashcraft, Taylor Motter, and Aristides Aquino have been added to the roster as substitute players, meaning we’ll once again likely get the chance to see if Aquino can ever again channel the August 2019 version of himself we so adored.

Equally as interesting is the rehab assignment of Jose Barrero, who’ll be hopping over to AAA Louisville again for his first action since his hamate bone surgery right before the start of the season. I still have no exact idea where he’ll play for the next 12 years while Kyle Farmer sets records for number of games played at shortstop, but Barrero’s talent is undeniable and he’ll surely slot in somewhere else to make it work.