John Fay

jfay@enquirer.com

PHOENIX The Reds had a meeting after Thursday's 4-0 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Players called. Players spoke.

"I didn't speak with the team," Price said. "We've met before. I think you can over meet. It's just frustration, frustration with our hitters and knowing it's been a battle to get things started offensively this season.

"It was matter of them collectively looking at our approach and find a way to fight to get guys on base and in. We've got catch some lightning. We haven't been able to put things together and have substantial offensive runs."

Todd Frazier thought the meeting helped. But the more meetings, he said, the less effect.

"There's not much more we can do," Frazier said. "We had the meeting where Bryan got us in the dugout the one time. We had a meeting here. We're all professionals. We all understand the game."

But Frazier said the energy slipped.

"We were going through the motions," he said. "That's not baseball. That's not fun when that kind of stuff happens. You want to win. You want to cheer. But there wasn't that extra gusto -- like a playoff game or something. It was great meeting; a lot guys stepped up said some things. You take a lot away from that.

"You find out who the leaders are, how passionate guys are about the game. We are. But we hit a lull. We've got to make the game fun again."

VOTTO HITS: Joey Votto, on the disabled list with a strained left quad, took batting practice and ran on the field at Great American Ball Park Friday.

It's the first time he's done either since the injury took him out of the lineup two weeks ago.

Stat guru Joel Luckhaupt tweeted out the numbers for the Reds since Votto's been out. They are hitting .218/.263/.325. When Votto was hurt in 2012, the Reds hit .268/.325/.445.

But in '12, they had Todd Frazier to bring in from the bench. They don't have that now.

"But our issue on offense is we have a lot of talented people in this lineup that aren't playing up this abilities to this point," Price said. "The encouraging part is we have guys with a history of success. Sure, any team is going to miss Joey Votto in the lineup. But we still have enough talent to win more regularly than we have."

NO SECOND GUESS: Price would not speculate if he thought Jay Bruce would have been better off with a rehab assignment. Bruce went into Friday 2-for-23 since coming off the DL after knee surgery.

"To me, that just would be a second guess," Price said. "I don't know if he would have hit any better if he spent three days in Louisville. To me, that's a question that can't be answered. I really don't know."

BERNADINA AT FIRST: Roger Bernadina said he last played first base in Rookie Ball. That would have been 2002.

But he was fine with making his first big league start there Friday.

"Whatever I can do to help the team," he said. "I've done it in the past. I took some ground balls there the last few days. I'll try to do what I can to help the team."

Bernadina just got a first baseman's mitt.