Jay Bruce—What in the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks Is Going On?

"It's not something I'm going to push at this point," Jay Bruce said Friday about his strained oblique. "I've taken the process this far. I'm going to see it through. When I come back, I want to be 100 percent ready to come back—not 90 percent, not 80 percent."

Read that real carefully.

Look at the calender, too. It points to September, and it has been a very productive year for the team, but by this point, no one is 100 percent.

Look at Arthur Rhodes, for an example of someone who is dealing with a lot of pain, but pushes through. The man can barely put weight on his foot, as he's dealing with plantar fascilitis.

This injury won't get any worse, necessarily, but he will be dealing with it for the rest of the year.

“You can tell it is bothering him some,” Baker said. “This guy has never been short of guts.”

I'm not suggesting that guys act foolhardy and play when they are clearly disabled, but at some point, Bruce needs to get back out there if he's healthy enough to be taking cuts in the batting cage.

Jim Edmonds just got activated from the DL, Laynce Nix is out, Chris Heisey is banged up, and was slumping anyway (Saturday night's heroics aside).

Drew Stubbs and Jonny Gomes probably could use a day off as well.

It has gotten so bad, that Miguel Cairo, of all people, had to play right field Saturday night.

For weeks now, it's been a "day-to-day" injury. What gives?

With expanded rosters, no one needs to go on the DL, necessarily, but if you ask me, there's something fishy going on.

The Reds won't go into much detail concerning his injury, but I think he was hurt in the walk-off celebration against Milwaukee a few weeks ago.

Regardless, we need his bat, and the team has been struggling to swing the stick.

100 percent? 140-plus games into this thing, what does that mean?