Notes: De León optioned; Castellanos sits

CINCINNATI -- The Reds made an adjustment to the bullpen ahead of Wednesday’s game with the White Sox by optioning right-hander José De León to Triple-A Louisville. Left-hander Cionel Pérez was recalled from Louisville to take the roster spot.

De León was 0-1 with an 8.25 ERA in nine games, including the two starts from when he opened the season in the rotation. Over 18 1/3 innings, he allowed 22 hits, walked 11 and struck out 33. He allowed three earned runs over 1 2/3 innings during Tuesday’s 9-0 loss to the White Sox.

“He’s got to make the most of this opportunity to go to Triple-A and make sure he stays ready. We’ve got a long way to go, so at some point, we may get him back,” Reds manager David Bell said. “The results recently, we just know he’s capable of helping us even more, and that’s kind of the goal -- for him to go and get ready and get back, so that he can help us.”

De León will be used as a reliever at Louisville, rather than a starter.

“We feel like there’s the most opportunity to help us,” Bell said. “Unless something happens, he’ll be there for at least 10 days, and the plan is to go there and stay a reliever, come back to help us on shorter outings.”

Pérez opened the season in the big leagues, but after an impressive beginning, wound up with an 8.31 ERA over 10 appearances before he was optioned to the alternate training site and traveling taxi squad.

During Louisville’s opener on Tuesday, Pérez pitched a scoreless seventh inning with one walk and two strikeouts.

“He did his job to make the most of the time,” Bell said. “It was actually a bit, because we’ve been using him a lot, so he rested a little bit, had some good bullpen sessions with us, and then continued to pitch well in Louisville.”

Pérez could add left-handed protection for the bullpen if Amir Garrett must serve a seven-game suspension that was levied by MLB on Tuesday. Garrett is appealing the penalty.

“As far as Amir’s situation goes, I have no idea how long that will take, so we didn’t base the decision on that,” Bell said. “But it was more just, as of today, we felt like Cionel could help us win games, and that he was one of the best guys that we could carry in the bullpen. But at some point, we are going to have to address that, deal with it. It’s just hard to know the timing.”

Long stretch of games ahead
Reds players will need to make the most of Thursday’s off-day, their second this week. Once the road trip begins Friday in Cleveland, they will embark on a stretch of 30 games in 31 days.

The next scheduled off-day for Cincinnati is May 24 and the one after that is June 7.

“It seems like, a lot of times, you’ll have a lot of off-days in a row and then you’ll have these long stretches,” Bell said. “We have tried to make the most of this time to make sure we’re as rested as possible and healthy as possible going into that stretch.

“Our starters, a lot of them, will get two extra days during this week. We’ll just have to kind of take it one day at a time. The proactive part of it, I think, would be to go into it with an extra reliever, which we’ve actually been carrying now for a while. Outside of that, I don’t know that there’s really a whole lot else that we can do other than a bunch of little decisions each day to make sure we’re staying healthy and rested and doing everything we can to get through that stretch and have success during that stretch.”

Castellanos scratched
The Reds scratched right fielder Nick Castellanos from the lineup on Wednesday because of mid-back tightness and replaced him with Tyler Naquin. Castellanos left Tuesday’s game in the sixth inning when his back tightened.