Joey Votto is back, joining his team as they visit his home town in Toronto. FSOhio has been playing clips from an interview with him through the game, talking about the anxiety attacks that he’s been suffering from. I, too, suffer from anxiety attacks, sometimes for no reason that I can explain, so hearing him describe his experiences just sent a pang of empathy through me for a lad that I already have an uncommon affection for.

As I said, the Reds are playing in Toronto, which is, for those of your following along at home, home to an AL team. Which means that the Reds get to use a designated hitter. As is the traditional wisdom, they are having their pitcher sit out. A more dynamic manager might have recognized that since it’s Micah Owings pitching, they ought to have the pitcher leading off and DH for Willy Taveras.

The Blue Jays’ pitcher tonight has a nasty, ’70s ‘stache that’s making me want to gag. I realize that styles come and go, and that facial hair is totally retro, but nasty ’70s ‘staches are just the gross. Similarly, I do not like the beard that the actor who plays Jim on The Office (who’s name I can’t remember except that it’s really long) had grown for the movie he’s in with Maya Rudolph. Yuck. Way to ruin an otherwise perfectly good-looking dude.

Continuing on the topic of perfectly good-looking dudes returns us to where we began: even Joey Votto has not managed to help the Reds find their offense tonight as I sit here watching in the sixth inning. May the power of the anti-stache prevail before this night is done!

Rookies hope for a cuppa coffee in the majors where they can get a brief glimpse of the major-league lifestyle before, hopefully, taking it on full-time.

Meanwhile, Reds’ offense Joey Votto enjoys a relaxing cup of tea in single A Dayton, warding off his stress-related ailments with a lovely bit of hitting.

I’m hopeful that we’ll be seeing that relaxed smile again soon.

Perhaps not in those exact words, but The Wall Street Journal did insult the Reds intelligence yesterday in a piece that examined the overall education levels of teams and their managers. The Reds were the 27th worst.

Dusty Baker responded to this by again slotting Willy Taveras and Alex Gonzalez in the top of the batting order. Yes, those with the mighty 27.0 and 25.6 Not Out Percentages, respectively. Of course, both failed to get hits, contributing 1/3 of the game’s outs.

It’s as if Baker were saying, I’m not stupid; I’m insane. That’s assuming he actually expected a different result, though.

Either that, or the gobs of millions does

I saw this story about the growing closeness between Ken Griffey Jr and Ichiro Suzuki on Deadspin today.

Ichiro Suzuki spreads a towel on the carpeted floor in front of his locker, lies on his back and begins doing stretching exercises. From Ichiro’s blind side, Ken Griffey Jr. pounces, gets his hands deep under Ichiro’s armpits and digs in with his fingers. Ichiro’s laughter is almost childlike – genuine and uncontrolled – and after about five seconds he screams the magic word to make Griffey stop. Junior stands up, walks back to his locker and sits down. Ichiro lies quietly for a moment, letting his body relax, then goes back to stretching as if nothing had happened.

Baseball players are weird dudes. Apparently, Ichiro was unhappy with the team losing so badly last year, as opposed to all those players of sports who get lively thrills from getting their asses kicked on a daily basis. But the arrival of Griffey has changed that, and the two have become BFFs.

Of course, the Mariners are still losing more than they’re winning, but at least Ichiro has, at long last, found happiness.

Dang, the Reds are boring right now. Part of it is that they didn’t even play today, though frankly that’s a bit of an improvement over the games of the last three days. It’s hard to work up a serious baseball passion watching a sweep at the hands of the Royals. There’s only so much enthusiasm a person can muster at each Taveras at-bat, wondering if this will finally be the time.

Speaking of, I went out to Reds.com to see was what up on the official news front. I clicked on the story, “Baker working with Taveras to shake slump” to see what magic potion Dusty was concocting, only to be taken to the Atlanta series preview. Apparently even the official site don’t have anything more to say on the matter.

So I went to Red Reporter and dug through the flashing ads enough to find a discussion of old Reds short stops. Man, those really were the days. Barry Larkin got a hit in the first AB of the first Reds game I ever saw in person. Why he was leading off, I don’t know, but apparently it’s etched in my memory for all time.

Took a look at Redleg Nation, where Steve Price is advocating trading Aaron Harang for a bat. I don’t think so, Tim. The bats will come off the DL eventually. No need to disassemble the rotation just yet.

Except maybe just to make things a little more interesting.