jillcarlson's Blog

There's been a lot of talk about this topic since Alfonso Soriano joined the Cubs.  There is no doubt that when he's healthy and in one of his infamous hot hitting streaks, as he was two weeks ago, Soriano is a huge asset.  But while his calf injury is not serious enough to land him on the disabled list, it's clearly enough of an issue that he can't run the bases normally.  And it's enough of a mental hurdle, that it's affected the way he chases routine fly balls.  Did his bad calf cause him to lose the fly ball in the sun in the ninth inning (another Cubby Occurrence), leading to an extra inning loss?  No...it did not.  But it is a reason manager Lou Piniella should not take an offense when a reporter wonders why Soriano isn't replaced for defensive reasons in the later innings.  Soriano never has been a great defensive outfielder, great arm aside.  And the calf injury isn't helping.  And yet Piniella has snapped at reporters when asked, "did you think about replacing Soriano in left?"  His response one time recently "Yes...what do you think ?I'm an idiot?"  No...but you merely thought about it and didn't actually DO it.  Don't get me wrong.  I think Piniella is a brilliant manager.  I'll never know as much about the game as he does.  But he's wrong if he's allowing concerns about Soriano's overly sensitive ego to taint what he probably knows to be the right thing to do.