Joe Strauss of the Post-Dispatch tweets that Reds starter Johnny Cueto did not travel with the team to St. Louis for this weekend’s series due to “a serious family issue.”
Given how badly “serious family issues” can suck, I would hope for Cueto’s sake that this is really a smokescreen created in order to keep him from having to walk the streets of St. Louis when everyone there hates his guts. Sadly, my guess is that the Reds aren’t so weird (nor is Cueto so nervous) that such a thing is likely. Here’s hoping his family issues are successfully and happily resolved.
For what it’s worth, Cueto wasn’t slated to start against the Cardinals this weekend, so his loss won’t be important from a baseball perspective.