Votto Return, or Lack Thereof, Creating Concern

If there is one word that Reds fans have familiarized themselves with, it is meniscus. When it was reported that Joey Votto was diagnosed with a torn meniscus, I bet WedMD got a ton of hits. We wanted to know everything and anything there was to know about a torn meniscus.

After some sliding practice, it then turned to “floating cartilage”. There would be more “investigating” after it was announced another procedure had to be performed. Well, here we sit some seven weeks after the initial surgery and…no Votto.

You see, what the plan was, was that when Votto was rady, he would go to Dayton for a couple of rehab games (last Tuesday and Wednesday), depart Dayton to meet the team in Houston. That sounded good to a lot of us. I even got to go to the Tuesday evening game in Dayton…and hear “Paint It Black” as he walked up for his first at-bat. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t care what the result was in his ABs.

Apparently, after Wednesday, Votto didn’t quite feel comfortable at the plate. As expected, there was some swelling and general discomfort of the knee, but those were expected. That Votto was not himself at the plate was, a concern?

The agenda was then revised to have Votto play Saturday in Columbus as the Louisville Bats played the Clippers. A home run seemed to suffice for some Reds fans. New word was #19 would join the Reds today in Cincinnati as the Reds hosted the Phillies. The excitement over a Votto return was building…

That would be incorrect…again. Last evening, this hit my Twitter timeline…

So, this was getting a little puzzling. To some, maybe even creating a slight bit of panic (You know who you are!). Even I, a usually calm individual, was starting to become a little concerned. Twice the apparent return of the 2010 NL MVP has been, shall we say, rescheduled. What has made such difficult (for those I previously acknowledged) is that no explanation (aside from not feeling comfortable at the plate and I’ll add a little swelling and soreness which is to be expected) has been “released”.

It would be too easy to say that there are other issues surrounding Votto and his repaired knee, wouldn’t it? Ah, but there’s where you could be incorrect.

Remember during spring training when Votto was not feeling comfy in the batter’s box? What did he do? We heard the story that he went to every field within the Goodyear complex in order to take extra ABs so he could attain that feeling. While he never completely achieved that before the team came to Cincy, it wasn’t actually until after the first month of the season (Votto was hitting .289 with 2 homers and 15 RBI after April), when Votto got to “Votto level”. Could be nothing more than the same now.

And, yes, I went a long way to make that one point.

Just wanted to show that a wandering mind can wander too far…