April 22nd, 2008
It appears Ronny Cedeno has no intention of slowing down his RBI onslaught. Today, the shortstop/second baseman added 5 more RBI to the 5 he tallied in the three previous games. And they haven’t been petty.
His two RBI in the eighth inning on Monday gave the Cubs a breathing room lead of 4-1. His first RBI today gave the Cubs a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning and his final four on a grand slam in the eighth iced the 8-1 victory.
If Cedeno continues his clutch hitting, Lou Piniella is going to have some tough lineup decisions to make when Alfonso Soriano returns May 1. The Cubs will have Ryan Theriot, Mark DeRosa, Mike Fontenot and Cedeno all capable of holding down the middle infield.
April 22nd, 2008
I just turned on the game to check the score only to see what I complained about a dozen posts or so ago: The Cubs fail to score a runner from third with less than two outs.
This is bad. The Cubs had the bases loaded with nobody out and Ronnie Cedeno looks at strike three and Henry Blanco grounds into a double play. Last night Cedeno came through with two outs after the Cubs wasted a similar situation.
Wasting scoring opportunities will come back to bite you. Still a scoreless game. Cubs should be up at least 1.
April 22nd, 2008
The Cubs offense is simply scorching since Alfonso Soriano’s injury: 59 runs in seven games (6-1).
The week-long fire surge—which positioned the Cubs into first place—came everywhere from the typical (Derrek Lee 8 RBI, 3 HR, .379 BA; Aramis Ramirez 7 RBI, 2 HR .375 BA; Mark DeRosa 9 hits, 8 RBI .391 BA) to the atypical (Ronny Cedeno’s 5 RBI and 4 runs in last three games; Felix Pie’s 3-run HR on Monday; Eric Patterson’s game-winning RBI on Friday).
And that’s not even mentioning Ryan Theriot, who had 13 hits, 9 runs and .481 BA without even playing on Monday.
The Cubs now have five players in the National League’s top-25 batting average and seven in the NL’s top-20 OBP. In MLB, the Cubs rank second in RBI (108), second in runs (118), second in OBP (.364), third in hits (193), fifth in BA (.280) and fifth in extra base hits (67).
Now, I don’t want to be one of those guys who asks “Who needs Soriano?”, because the Cubs do need him. When ’Fons’ went down injured last August and missed 19 games, he came back in September to hit .320 with 14 home runs.
