The Reds’ postseason chances were dealt a blow on Saturday when All-Star pitcher Hunter Greene went on the injured list with right elbow soreness, but the flamethrowing 25-year-old appears to have avoided a major injury.

“We had a doctor see him, had [an] MRI, it’s not as bad as we thought,” Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall said Sunday in an appearance on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM. “He’s going to get checked out again, a second opinion, and we’re working through that right now. At this point, it’s minimal. He’s going to miss some time, obviously, because it is an injury to his elbow and we just want to be precautious on that. But overall it’s the best-case scenario and hopefully he’ll miss a minimal amount of time and be back soon.”

This isn’t the first time Greene has dealt with an elbow issue. While coming up through Cincinnati’s Minor League system, he underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019. He didn’t end up making his MLB debut until 2022, nearly five years after the Reds took him with the No. 2 overall pick in the 2017 MLB Draft.

Greene showed promise over his first two seasons with the Reds, but he battled more injury problems and inconsistency en route to a 4.62 ERA with a 3.6 BB/9 and a 1.6 HR/9 in 46 starts.

This year, though, Greene has looked like a different pitcher, earning his first All-Star selection and posting a 2.83 ERA with 162 K’s over 143 1/3 innings. He had a sparkling 0.98 ERA over 46 innings in seven starts leading up to his latest IL stint, issuing just 12 walks and yielding two homers in that span.

“He’s learning how to be a big league pitcher,” Krall said. “I think we take that for granted sometimes when you’ve got a 22- [or] 23-year-old trying to work their way into this game. And then once they become 24, 25, 26, they start getting into their prime and they become elite players. He’s always been an elite talent, but now he’s really worked hard, he’s worked his butt off to develop into the pitcher he’s become this year.”

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