Soriano out but not down; Cotts has surgery
Sam Fuld gets his second straight start in left field and in the leadoff spot tonight when the Cubs play host to the Brewers. Lou said Soriano will be back in there tomorrow and that, yes, he and his .296 OBP would be leading off again.
I asked GM Jim Hendry if the organization had talked of Soriano no longer being a leadoff hitter (if he ever was such a thing) and Jim said no.
"We haven't really talked about it," Jim said. "The talk we've had about Sori, Lou and I, has always been he's been in a funk longer than he ever has been before. He's a streaky guy. When he gets hot, he can carry you. But we haven'd had any conversations about where he hits. You'd be surprised how little that's ever come up, he and I, the last couple years. It's killing him (Soriano) that he's not playing better. We always go to the ballpark thinking, 'This could be the day he gets ignited again.' As we've all seen, he's about as streaky in a good way as there is in the game, too. Hopefully, that'll happen soon."
Soriano said he's been working on "timing" with hitting coach Von Joshua. He said he'd like to bat first but that he'd move if told to. My feeling on this has been that Lou should tell Soriano he's batting elsewhere but make it clear he's not going to change his mind in 48 hours (or less).
The Cubs announced during tonight's game that lefty Neal Cotts, who opened the season with the big club, had Tommy John surgery on his elbow today in Cincinnati. The surgery was done by Dr. Timothy Kremchek. That, of course, finishes Cotts' season.
Lineup
Fuld, LF
Theriot, SS
Lee, 1B
Bradley, RF
Fox, 3B
Fukudome, CF
Soto, C
Fontenot, 2B
Dempster, P
Reed Johnson and Aramis Ramirez will play for Peoria this weekend, Ramirez tomorrow at Kane County and Saturday and Sunday at Peoria. Johnson will play Saturday and Sunday as he and Ramirez rehab injuries. Pitcher Angel Guzman will make one more rehab outing, tomorrow for Iowa. Expect all three players to be activated by next Monday.
Is there any chance that when Ramirez is ready to be activated that the Cubs decide to designate Aaron Miles for assignment and eat his contract rather than option Blanco or Jeff Baker to Iowa?
Jimmy Boy said it, Soriano is "Streaky". It is not good to be streaky as a lead-off hitter. Alfonso Soriano needs to be the lead-off hitter for this team like Derrek Lee needs to be the Closer. Come on Bruce, you have to admit it sounds like Soriano has compromisng pictures of someone in the organization for them to be continually blind to this!
smacks the **** out of the ball tonight to make that decision REALLY hard.
Even Lou has to admit that Fuld has absolutely shown everything you want out of a leadoff hitter so far. Sure, it's only been two games, but he's made the opposing pitchers work and even the two outs he made tonight were hit extremely hard. Soriano would have been hacking at the first pitch and McLung would probably have gotten out of the first inning. Instead, Fuld saw nine pitches and earned a BB. Lee went yard and it was off to the races. Even if Lou feels he has to get Soriano back in the lineup tomorrow, he should put Fuld in CF and keep him at leadoff at least until his hot bat cools. What a great opportunity to move Soriano out of the leadoff spot. And I definitely agree with Bruce that he needs to committ a lot more than 48 hours to batting Soriano down in the order. He needs to know he's not going to weasel his way back into the top slot by going zero for eight and convincing Lou he isn't going to be effective in an RBI spot.
so far. :-)