By Bill Koch and John Erardi
The Cincinnati Enquirer

PHOTO GALLERY

Photos of Sunday's game

Barry Larkin, who's been on the disabled list since May 22 with a strained right calf, is getting closer to being activated.

He was eligible to come off the disabled list last Friday.

Larkin, who took ground balls on Saturday while moving to his right and left, also ran sprints in the outfield. The report on Sunday was encouraging enough to allow Larkin to make the trip today to Florida, where the Reds open a three-game series against the Devil Rays on Tuesday.

"The original plan was for him not to go," said Reds manager Bob Boone. "But he had a great day (Saturday). We couldn't see light at the end of the tunnel. Now all of a sudden we can see it. Yesterday was a huge workout. It was very encouraging."

GRAVES UPDATE: It isn't known yet whether Danny Graves will make his next start, scheduled for Wednesday. He has medicated wraps on his right middle and index fingers, where he developed blisters in last Thursday's start.

If the medication doesn't work, he doesn't know what the next step might be, but he isn't ruling out the old-fashioned remedy of soaking his fingers in pickle juice.

Asked what type of pickles the juice would have to come from, Graves said: "Kosher. Got to be Kosher. Dill. I'll go with Vlasic."

DRIPS AND DROPS: Sunday's 1:15 p.m. start was at first postponed until 2 p.m. because of a forecast of rain, which forecasters expected to have passed by then - instead it arrived in buckets at 1:38 p.m.

Elvis Presley's "Kentucky Rain" played on the P.A. system to accompany the deluge.

The sun burst out for a few minutes shortly thereafter, but it was short-lived and it began raining even harder and never really let up until about 3:30 p.m. At 3:50 p.m., it was announced the game would start at 4:15 p.m.; it started at 4:20 p.m.

ATTENDANCE BOOST: The six interleague games against the Yankees and Blue Jays attracted 210,263 fans, an average crowd of 35,043. The Reds have drawn 975,137 for the season, an increase of 221,081 or 29 percent over last year when they drew only 754,058 through the same amount of dates. They're averaging 28,680 this season.