I never liked the "Soriano Hop". I never thought it would actually cause him to hurt himself though. I am not a Soriano fan. He's an absolute offensive mammoth when he gets hot, but when he's not hot, he has very little value to this team. And he is a terrible leadoff hitter when he's cold. His on-base is .230. Let's face it: this is one of the worst contracts in baseball right now, second maybe only to Barry Zito.
I'm not saying having him go down is going to help the Cubs. He's still an all-star player, and like I said, when he gets hot, he gets blazing hot. But it's so damn frustrating watching him go up there, spitting 500 times, swinging at everything, spitting, refusing to look at pitches from the leadoff spot, more spitting. All I'm saying is whoever is put in the leadoff spot while he is out, whether that be Theriot or Reed Johnson, (Fukudome?) better step it the hell up and prove to Lou Piniella that he has a bonafide table setter to put at the top of the lineup, so he does't have to stick Soriano in there so he can strike out, hit solo home runs, and not steal bases. This is why Brian Roberts would be nice.
And props to Mark DeRosa. This guy goes out to left field, plays all over, doesn't complain, and keeps puttng up offensive numbers. What a great pick up he turned out to be.
And props to Ryan Dempster. I would be the first to say that I was pretty pessimistic about him being the number 3 starter, but he's been solid as a rock in his first 3 starts (the 3rd was sketchy, but the wind was blowing straight out).
And Ted Lilly and Rich Hill need to get it under control. Have either of them even lasted 5 innings in either of their starts yet?
These are just some early thoughts. Hopefully they can keep beating up on the teams they should be beating up on .
Keywords: Alfonso Soriano, Baseball, Chicago, Cubs, Mark DeRosa, Rich Hill., Ryan Dempster, Ted Lilly
