Major League Baseball

Reds 3B Rolen has surgery on shoulder

Published Aug. 3, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

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Cincinnati third baseman Scott Rolen had surgery on his left shoulder on Wednesday and is expected to miss four to six weeks.

Rolen, who has been on the disabled list since July 22, had arthroscopic surgery to remove bone spurs and fragments from a joint in his shoulder by Reds medical director Dr. Timothy Kremchek.

''I'm hoping that whatever pain and what was wrong in there they found it,'' Reds manager Dusty Baker said. ''Hopefully it won't return and he can rehab and be back even earlier than anticipated.''

The Reds had hoped that Rolen could recover without surgery, but it recently became clear that he would not.

''They didn't really know the severity of it (at first),'' Baker said. ''It wasn't healing and feeling any better on rehab. It wasn't an easy decision for Scottie to go down this late in the season and this late in his career, but he knew that it was necessary.''

Rolen is hitting .242 with five homers and 36 RBI in 65 games this season.

He was also out from April 24 to May 12 with an injury to the same shoulder. Rolen has had issues with his shoulder since 2005 when he was injured in a collision with the Dodgers' Hee Seop Choi and had two operations.

Rolen missed the last month of the season in 2007 when he had his shoulder cleaned out and was on the DL in 2008 with a shoulder sprain.

The Reds will have to continue to rely on Miguel Cairo and Todd Frazier to fill in at third base for now, but they could get some help soon. Juan Francisco is recovering from July surgery to repair torn meniscus in his right knee and is expected to join Triple-A Louisville on Thursday to continue his rehabilitation.

''We've got to carry on,'' Baker said. ''We've got games to go in the meantime until he gets back ... hopefully in the future we might get Francisco back. It was bad timing for Francisco because he was really next in line and he would have gotten a lot of playing opportunity had he not been hurt.''

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