The Reds have called up Kristopher Negron from AAA Louisville. To make room, they have optioned Mike Costanzo. The Reds point out that when Negron gets on the field, he will be the third Reds player this season to make his Major League debut, preceded by RHP J.J. Hoover and Costanzo himself.

Constanzo has not exactly torn it up with the Reds. He has hit just .056 in 18 ABs. Negron, on the other hand, has been hitting .212 for the Bats–better, but also not setting the world on fire. John Fay suggests that swapping Costanzo for Negron might be less about performance and more about flexibility: Costanzo is an infielder, but Negron is an IF/OF.

In related news, starting center fielder Drew Stubbs hurt himself when fouling off a ball in the seventh inning last night. It was bad enough that he left the game after the 8th and wasn’t immediately sure whether it would take him out of commission for any amount of time.

Here’s Jay Bruce, in the casual if futile attempt to catch the home run that Alex Presley of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit over the wall last night. This seems like a pretty unfortunate situation, but maybe if we look at it from a different perspective…

Ah yes! Bruce couldn’t catch the ball, but he did get some very heart-healthy wall climbing in for the day.

The Cincinnati Reds blog on Cincinnati.com is reporting that injured Reds are making progress in their recovery.

Right-handed pitcher Nick Masset is throwing 120 feet as part of his shoulder recovery and is reporting a pain-free experience. He’s been out with inflammation in the right shoulder. He’s still got some work to do before he’s game ready, though.

Left-handed pitcher Bill Bray is pitching in extended spring training and also reporting a pain-free experience. He’s been out with a strained left groin and an irritated disc in his back. Sounds like he’s closer to returning than Masset is, which could be interesting. With a left-handed reliever available out of the bullpen, the team’s view on Aroldis Chapman’s role could change.

The Reds third base All-Star candidate, Scott Rolen has started taking swings and grounders. He’s been out with a strained left shoulder. Rolen is a helluva guy, but I believe the Reds actually have a losing record when he starts. The value he adds doesn’t require him to be on the field, in my opinion. I wonder what’ll happen when he comes back. He’s likely to return later this month.

This is one of those posts that’s only going to make sense to long-time RHM readers. You would have had to have been around, like, 5-7 years ago to remember when platoon catcher Javier Valentín was dubbed the “Latin Love Machine” and became sort of a mascot to the site.

Back then we had the whole blogsphere calling him “the LLM”. We posted up a bouncing Javy head every year on his birthday. We even added a site tagline in his honor: “Making Javier Valentín a household name since 2005.”

Those were heady days.

But yesterday, there was promise for the return of the Latin Love Machine dynasty. Javy’s nephew, Jesmuel Valentín was drafted by the L.A. Dodgers with the 51st overall pick. So keep your eye on L.A. the next couple years to see if Jesmuel can achieve household name status.

As the Cincinnati Reds get more interesting to watch, the bigger channels start flexing their muscles to show Reds games. The June 10th game (this coming Sunday) was originally going to be showing on FOX Sports Ohio, but now it’s slated for national broadcast.

Well, “national” is as “national” does, I suppose. Sometimes when this option is picked up, it seems like fewer people end up seeing the Reds than if it had been left alone.

Still, you’ll be happy to see games like this picked up if:

1. You’re in the coverage area
2. You’re available to watch games during the day
3. You’re too far away (or just not planning) to see the game in person

And that’s because a Reds game picked up on the national scene means a day game that wouldn’t have otherwise been broadcast gets picked up by FSOH to make up for it. This time it’s the August 18th game:

As a make-up, please note that FOX Sports Ohio has picked up the Reds game on Saturday, August 18 at 1pm against the Chicago Cubs. The game will be preceded by Reds Live pregame show at 12:30pm and followed by Reds Live postgame edition.

This game is the first of a day/night double-header at Great American Ball Park, so FOX Sports Ohio will be back on the air that evening with Reds Live at 6:30pm as pregame coverage of the second game at 7pm.

I doubt you’ll remember that come August 18, so mark your calendars now.