Reds rookie Tyler Callihan on his way back after ‘gnarly' injury
CINCINNATI — What Cincinnati Reds rookie Tyler Callihan remembers most about the last time he played a baseball game is the sound his left arm made when it hit the left-field wall at Atlanta's Truist Park last month.
'It sounded like two bats snapping in half,' Callihan said of his radius and ulna snapping as he attempted to make a catch in the third inning of the Reds' May 5 game against the Atlanta Braves.
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Just the description is enough to make many queasy, much less when it's combined with the visual of his slide into the wall as he tracked down Matt Olson's fly ball.
'It makes your stomach turn,' manager Terry Francona said Wednesday.
Prayers for a speedy recovery for Tyler Callihan pic.twitter.com/2FfXo4VfwR
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) May 6, 2025
Callihan, who will celebrate his 25th birthday Sunday, was at Great American Ball Park on Wednesday and played catch for the first time since breaking his arm six weeks ago.
'If you would have told me even three weeks ago that it would feel like this, I'd have told you you were lying,' Callihan said.
There was at least one silver lining to the injury: He was able to be with his wife leading up to the birth of their son, Crew, who was born June 5, exactly a month after the injury. Instead of three days for paternity leave, Callihan was able to spend time with his family before and after Crew's birth.
'I get to help out with my wife in the middle of the night,' he said. 'Changing diapers is great for my rehab.'
Callihan said one of the bones was completely broken in half and the other 'shattered.' He flew to Cincinnati the next day and had surgery. Two metal plates and 12 pins were inserted into his forearm to fix the fractures.
'No more metal detectors for me,' Callihan said.
Doctors have given Callihan different timelines for his recovery, but at this point, he's just taking it step by step. Not only did he play catch for the first time Wednesday, but he also got clearance to start lifting weights with his left arm.
The game in Atlanta was just Callihan's fourth in the big leagues. A third-round pick out of a Jacksonville, Fla., high school in 2019, Callihan was added to the 40-man roster last offseason and impressed the Reds' brass during spring training, earning his early-season call-up.
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Callihan's first trip as a big-leaguer could've hardly been in a better place. His wife, Catherine, is from Monroe, Ga., outside Atlanta. His family came up from Jacksonville, and 24 friends and family members were in the stands that night — pretty much his entire family except Catherine, who was pregnant and watching on TV in Louisville. Two days prior, he recorded his first big-league hit against the Washington Nationals with an RBI single. He started the game in Atlanta in left field and grounded out in his first at-bat in the top of the third inning.
The Braves scored twice in the bottom of the inning before starter Brady Singer got Marcell Ozuna to fly out for the second out. The next batter, Olson, worked a full count before he drove Singer's sinker into the left-field corner.
Callihan was playing deep in left, saw the ball off the bat and knew it was going to be a tough catch. As he approached the wall, he said so many thoughts were going through his head. One of the first was a play against the wall he made when he was with the High-A Dayton Dragons. Playing third base for Dayton, he had to run far and deal with a wall. He remembered keeping his arm up and hitting the wall with his body. He also saw the concrete that was below the wall and wanted to make sure he didn't hurt his knee or let his neck hit first, either.
He also thought about what he'd do after he made the catch, yanking his glove down and almost cradling it into his body and trying to hit the wall with his back.
'It's hard to believe that so much of this was going through your mind at once, but it really was,' he said. 'I thought I had enough time to catch it and almost roll into the wall. I didn't want to hurt my neck or anything like that, but I thought I could do both. Obviously, I couldn't.'
Callihan knew he had the ball in his glove. He also knew he had a step or two before hitting the wall and hit the ground with the ball in his glove.
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'I knew there were two outs. In my head, I knew I caught it, and it was out three, and I could just sit back and relax — well, 'relax,' quote, unquote — and deal with my injury,' he recalled. 'Because when I looked down, I saw my arm and thought there was something really wrong with it.'
Center fielder TJ Friedl didn't even look for the ball, initially focusing only on his injured teammate.
Somehow, Callihan was able to walk off the field under his own power. He said Reds athletic trainers Sean McQueeney and Tomas Vera told him to put his left arm inside his jersey — for support and so people wouldn't see his flopping arm.
It wasn't until he was in the training room with doctors resetting the bones that he looked up at a TV and saw a 4-0 score. He knew it was 2-0 when he made the catch, and he wasn't sure how two more runs had scored.
'Did they not call that a catch?' he asked.
'The room was silent,' he recalled. 'Nobody would respond to me.'
Finally, he asked if Olson had been given a home run. He was told he had been, literally adding insult to injury.
'It didn't even cross my mind before that — that I didn't catch it — until I saw that. It just made everything worse, honestly,' he said. 'I just did all of that for it to not only not be an out but for it to be a home run. I was just trying to prevent that one run from scoring, and I ended up letting both runs score. I was definitely bummed out about that.'
He was also, thankfully, numbed as the doctors put the bones back into place before wrapping his arm tightly so he could make the trip back to Cincinnati for surgery the next day. Still, he could feel his bones clanking together as he headed home.
'I had to get on a flight — I could just feel the bones,' he said. 'Every bump we hit on the bus, every turbulence bump. … They got me pain meds, but I could still feel it.'
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As Callihan returned to Cincinnati, he watched replays of the play 'about 100 times.'
Santiago Espinal, who was playing third base when Callihan got hurt, said he still hasn't seen the video. He made sure to avert his eyes when it was played on the Truist Park scoreboard during the delay. He hasn't watched it since and said it's not something he ever wants to see. That said, he was excited to see Callihan on Wednesday.
'I know it was pretty bad,' Espinal said. 'But seeing him smile, seeing him in good spirits and in this locker room with us, I think it's pretty amazing.'
Callihan has a pair of scars on his forearm, both roughly 6 inches long.
'They're pretty gnarly,' he said. 'People told me I should say I got bit by a shark, but other people say my story is cooler.'
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