Joey Votto Makes Spring Debut On Saturday

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Joey Votto will test his surgically repaired quadriceps on Saturday in Surprise against the Kansas City Royals.

"We put him through the riggers," manager Bryan Price said. "He was on the bases twice, yesterday at full speed. He was sliding. He took extra groundballs to test his durability and extra swings in the cage."

Votto was behind the other players as far as baseball activities.  He spent the winter in Toronto rehabbing the injury.  Votto usually spends the winter in Sarasota working on baseball skills.

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Robert Stephenson

Robert Stephenson started out behind the rest of the pitchers.

"He is getting there," Price said. "The shoulder had a little bit of tenderness in it. We wanted to make sure we didn't rush him into games. It doesn't make sense for any of these to be throwing with any type of arm soreness in spring training."

Stephenson will pitch live batting practice before he gets into games.

His numbers were not as good in Double A as they had been the year before.

"Like a lot of young pitchers that throw hard, they want to utilize the fastball to get them out of trouble," Price said. "Most of their troubles aren't throwing strikes, it is throwing quality strikes, getting command of the lower part of the strike zone, throwing the secondary pitches, the curveball, the change up over the plate, behind in the count.  I think he's learning that pitch management will be a huge part of his success."

The Reds want to see him challenged and learn to take his lumps.

"He has three good pitches. He is just trying to learn how to manage those pitches at a level where hitters aren't intimidated by a good fastball," Price said. "It is harder to develop players when their only failure is when the come to the big leagues.  It is hard to watch a player struggle but sometimes it's a necessary evil in development."

Homer Bailey Update

Homer Bailey has thrown three bullpens but the Reds want to see him throw some curveballs before he takes the next step to live batting practice.

"It is an outing to outing evaluation of Homer," Price said.  "We have a map of what we expect him to do but there is no way to guarantee that he'll follow it. It may be a slower progression or more rapid.  He looked very good. I don't anticipate any setbacks."

Devin Mesoraco Working

Devin Mesoraco had a nice year at the plate and been progressing as a catcher.

"He just needs to continue to improve," Price said. "His game calling has gotten better, his blocking, his throwing improved greatly from the first half to the second. He is working more actively on throwing behind runners. That is the area of focus among all of our catchers, making sure that runners aren't comfortable taking secondary leads. It really gives baserunners an acute awareness of getting back to the bag on a swing and miss."

Mesoraco has been working at making runners aware the he will back pick.

"He's a great professional," Price said. "Devin is universally admired for his work ethic and his physical attributes."