Not again

In 1968, speaking of Tony Conigliaro - who was a decent-hitting corner outfielder who missed the second half of an eventual pennant win in 1967 after being hit in the head with a pitch - Red Sox manager Dick Williams said, "We did it without his butt last year, and we'll do it without his butt this year." This is hardly a one-to-one comparison - Alfonso Soriano's primary missed time was about 20 games in August last year, he hit 14 home runs in September after returning, and the team for the year was just 12-16 in games he didn't start. But I kind of feel like this is starting to become a recurring theme with Soriano, where he starts the season slowly, heats up, and then gets injured.

This one wasn't exactly his fault, although aren't players taught to get out of the way of pitches coming at them? Soriano had, I guess, gone too far into the start of his swing, and ended up turning right into the pitch; I suppose we can be thankful it hit him in the hand and not the face. But six weeks is a long time, and with the Cardinals still annoyingly refusing to go away and the Brewers heating up a bit, and with a tougher part of the schedule coming up, this isn't exactly the best time for Soriano to go down (not that there's a good time for your leading home run hitter to go on the shelf - in 1996, the Cubs were at .500 and five games out when Sammy Sosa was hit on August 20 and missed the rest of the year; the Cubs finished ten games under .500 and 12 games out, although even with Sosa that wasn't exactly the most talented Cubs team ever).

The Cubs won 7-2 over the Braves with Ryan Dempster turning in the first Cubs complete game of the year (last year they had two all season, one by Marquis and one by Zambrano in a 1-0 loss), but it was sort of overshadowed. So, where do we go from here?

Option #1: DeRosa in left, Cedeno or Fontenot at second
Or Theriot at second and Cedeno at short, but I don't see Lou doing that. This is pretty much the obvious move, at least at first - tonight DeRosa moved to left and Fontenot came in to play second. DeRosa actually has a higher OPS than Soriano right now thanks to his significantly better OBP, and he'll probably play left at least as well. As for Cedeno or Fontenot, maybe playing every day will get them back into a bit of a groove and they can contribute from the 7 or 8 hole. On the other hand, maybe not.

Option #2: Bring Hoffpauir back up and put him in left
In 11 games, Hoffpauir OPSed 1.029, and he can play left - again, perhaps not tremendously well, but Soriano has kind of been loping around out there himself. The left-center gap is likely to be hideously exposed on a day when Hoffpauir and Edmonds both play, but there's a potential for Hoffpauir to make it up with his bat.

Option #3: Johnson in left, Edmonds in center
The only problem here is, can Johnson really hit enough to be an everyday player? And can Edmonds be an everyday player (i.e. can he hit lefties and will he have the stamina to play every day at 38)?

Option #4: Thunder Matt
Murton's been hitting the ball pretty well at Iowa (.311/.411/.395, although that is one shitty power number) and he was an above-average hitter (.297/.365/.444) as the mostly everyday left fielder in 2006. If the Cubs do want to trade Murton, this could also be a good audition for him.

Option #5: Another minor leaguer
Eric Patterson, who can play left, is hitting .326/.361/.514 at Iowa; outfielder Andres Torres is hitting .313/.415/.490 (although he's currently on the seven-day DL and is a 30-year-old career minor leaguer); and Jason Dubois (he's baaaa-aaack!) has five home runs in just 12 games since rejoining the Cubs' system. Patterson is the obvious callup of those three, of course, although I think I would put the Hoff ahead of any of them.

For the moment I like option #2. The story on cubs.com suggests that the team is going to call up Hoffpauir and another guy - I would guess either Murton or Patterson - and ditch the 13th pitcher (I'm guessing Hart; Cotts would be the only other option, but he's left-handed and hasn't allowed a run yet).

Ugh. I'm not worried yet per se, but with a suddenly really tough-looking interleague slate on the upcoming schedule, this really was not the time.