May 7th, 2008
With Jon Lieber’s heinous rotation performance today (5 earned runs off 4 home runs in 2 innings), Rich Hill learning some lessons in Iowa and Jason Marquis pitching like, well, Jason Marquis, what’s Lou “I’m not stupid” Piniella to do?
Well, mix in the problems Sweet Lou is having with Alfonso Soriano (lead-off hitting and fielding) and trying to get Ronny Cedeno in the starting lineup, and there might be a solution. Albeit (jokingly) far fetched.
It’s something called the Reverse Ankiel: convert Soriano into a starting pitcher. In the same fashion that Tony La Russa changed struggling pitcher Rick Ankiel into a productive hitter.
Talk about extreme changes.
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.
