The day of Joey Votto’s return to the Cincinnati Reds may be this next week.

The Reds plan to have Joey Votto play rehab games at Single-A Dayton on Tuesday and Wednesday. If all goes well, Votto will rejoin the Reds and be activated next weekend when the club plays in Houston.

Votto hasn’t played since July 15. Since then, he’s had two procedures on his knee to deal with loose cartilage. And I can’t write any more about the procedure because it starts making me a little queasy.

For the last few days, Votto has been doing baseball activities at Great American Ball Park. However, he doesn’t feel that’s enough to jump right back into the major league lineup and would like a couple games in the minors.

“Hopefully two (games), depending on how I’m feeling,” Votto said. “I’m a little apprehensive because I haven’t played in such a long time, but once I get going I’ll feel fine.”

I understand his apprehension, but I also miss seeing him in the lineup. It has been nice that the team has gone 27-13 in his absence, but there’s no player I enjoy watching more than him. His return is getting closer, though. I just hope he lays off the sliding.

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Cardinals (69-57)	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	2	11	0
Reds (77-51)	0	0	1	0	0	3	4	0	-	8	12	0

Boxscore

Eight is the magic number of runs to score to win so far in this Reds-Cardinals series. St. Louis scored 8 and won the first game, and the Cincinnati Reds scored 8 yesterday to win the second of the three-game series.

Mike Leake started for the Reds against Jaime Garcia, in what looked like a wild mis-match in favor of the Cardinals. It didn’t turn out that way.

Leake wasn’t at his best, getting hit pretty hard, but he had a stellar defense behind him and was able to limit any damage from the 10 hits he allowed. He picked up his 6th win, pitching 6 2/3 innings, allowing 2 runs on 10 hits, walked none, and struck out 3.

By the time Leake left the game, the offense had the game well in hand. The bullpen did their part, too, though with Jonathan Broxton and J. J. Hoover both pitching scoreless innings. It may have been Broxton’s best outing as a Red, as he struck out 2 of the 4 batters he faced. He might be settling in to that 8th inning set-up role.

On the offense, the main heroes were Brandon Phillips and Jay Bruce. Phillips went 3-5 with 2 RBI and 2 runs scored. Bruce went 1-3 with a walk, but that one hit was big. Just seconds after Marty Brennaman complained on the radio about Bruce’s inability to hit left-handed pitchers, Bruce launched a no-doubt home run off of left-handed pitcher Garcia to give the Reds a 3-run lead they would not relinquish.

The Reds go for the series win today when Homer Bailey goes against at Adam Wainwright 1:10pom EDT.

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Cardinals (69-56)	0	1	0	1	0	6	0	0	0	8	14	2
Reds (76-51)	2	1	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	5	12	0

Boxscore

In a game that started off looking good for the Cincinnati Reds, the St. Louis Cardinals exploded for 6 runs in the 6th inning to take the lead and win the game.

Mat Latos started for the Reds and was solid through the first 5 innings, allowing just 2 runs. During that time, the Reds’ offense had accumulated a 3-run lead for him to work with. But in the 6th, everything went to hell. Latos faced 5 batters, but retired none of them. All would eventually score. Latos’ final line was 5 innings, 9 hits, 7 runs, 1 walk, and 5 strikeouts.

As for the offense, they scored early, taking an early 2-0 lead in the first. Brandon Phillips singled in Zack Cozart. And then Drew Stubbs scored when Ryan Ludwick grounded out. A 3rd run was added in the very next inning when Ryan Hanigan hit a sacrifice fly to score Todd Frazier. Frazier knocked in the 4th run in the 3rd inning by singling in Phillips. The Reds’ scoring ended in the 5th inning, though, with a Scott Rolen double that knocked in Jay Bruce.

After the 5th, the offense was unable to regroup and show the patience required to come back from a 3-run deficit. The team struck out 14 times in the game, and showed little life against a weak Cardinals’ bullpen.

The loss reduces the Reds’ lead over the Cardinals to 6 games. The Reds will try to get that back to 7 today when they send Mike Leake out to face Jaime Garcia at 4:10pm EDT.

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	R	H	E
Reds	1	0	0	0	0	2	0	0	0	0	0	3	6	1
Phillies	0	0	0	0	0	2	0	1	0	0	1	4	14	1

Boxscore

For the third time in a row, a Reds-Phillies game was decided by one run. Unfortunately, in this fourth game of the series, the decision was for the Phillies.

Johnny Cueto started for the Reds and had a pretty poor outing, by his standards. He pitched only 5.0 innings, allowing 2 runs (earned) on 5 hits and 3 walks.

The bullpen wasn’t exactly fresh when they were called upon to come in for the ace. Jose Arredondo pitched 1.2 innings without allowing a hit, but Sean Marshall gave up an earned run in his 0.2. Well, it was actually Sam LeCure who let the runner he inherited from Marshall score and tie up the game.

J.J. Hoover worked the next 2.0 and allowed 0 runs on 3 hits and a walk. Alfredo Simon was the unlucky fellow who pitched the bottom of the 11th, loaded up the bases, and finally let the walk-off run score.

In fact, the Reds had to pitch out of jams multiple times. The bases were loaded when the bottom of the ninth ended, and there were 2 on when the bottom of the tenth ended.

The ninth inning featured some ridiculously poor defense (see accompanying video), resulting in the Reds’ one error (though it felt like it should have counted for more than one), and I was amazed that they got out of it.

On the offense, all 3 of the Reds’ RBI belong to Todd Frazier. In the first, he grounded out with the bases loaded to put the Reds on the board. In the sixth, he doubled in Jay Bruce and Ryan Ludwick. He went 1-for-5 on the night, which was pretty typical: despite hanging with the Phillies in number of runs, the Reds were waaaaay out-hit by them. No player had more than 1 hit on the night, though Ryan Hanigan did walk 3 times.

The loss brings the Reds’ record to 76-50. Tonight they come home to Cincinnati to take on the Cardinals. Mat Latos (RHP, 10-3, 3.56 ERA) defends his home mound against Lance Lynn (RHP, 13-5, 3.73 ERA). First pitch is at 7:10 p.m.