Alfonso Soriano

September 3, 2008

Well, the Cubs dropped their 5th straight tonight in a 4-0 loss at home to Houston. Hopefully, they can regroup with an off day tomorrow and get things going in Cincinnati on Friday night. But enough about the 5 game skid. I'm confident we'll turn things around. This team is too good and veteran-led to keep losing. Plus, Milwaukee has hit a skid so we're still sitting pretty atop the division.

I need to rant about a certain player: Alfonso Soriano

Before I get going let me acknowledge that Alfonso is an amazing talent on the field. His home run swing is a beautiful thing. He can single-handedly carry a team for weeks at a time with his streaks of hitting where he is simply boiling hot and just hits the cover off of every baseball he comes in contact with.

That being said...Tonight was just one more example of how Mr. Soriano lacks energy, enthusiasm, intelligence, and overall pride in his play and the game of baseball.

In the 5th inning of tonight's game, Soriano hit a single into left field with Ronny Cedeno at 2nd base. Cedeno was sent home, and there was a play at the plate. The throw was on the money and Ronny was tagged out at home.

Meanwhile, Alfonso is still standing at first base. With the time it took this play to happen, Alfonso could have walked to second, yelled out to the beer vendor in left field, and ordered an Old Style.

This man is a rare 5 tool player. It's simply sad and frustrating watching him choose to not use each tool to its capability.

Numerous times this season Alfonso has failed to run hard on the bases or lazily jogged after a ball that got past him in the left field

For one example, leading off the big four game series in Milwaukee in late July, Soriano smoked a ball off the wall in left center. He put his head down out of the box, thinking it was a home run. As he rounded first base he realized the ball was not gone, and he barely made it to second for a double as the throw from left was just late.

Now tonight’s lack of hustle didn’t hurt us in the game really. The inning was over shortly afterwards anyway. However, eventually his inability to play the game hard will hurt us. Let’s just hope it’s not in a situation where it really matters.

Even Dave Kaplan, WGN radio host, was getting on Soriano tonight. From what I’ve seen Kaplan is one of the biggest Cub fans on television.

I don’t even care how much money Soriano makes. I know what his lucrative contract is. It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t like when people bring that argument up. So are you telling me that guys who make $20 mil a year should play harder than guys who make the league minimum?

Play the game the right way…whether you make millions or play Little League in front of dozens of your family members.

Physical mistakes happen all the time. I know that.

I’ll even take the occasional mental mistake. I know the 162 game season is grueling and not every player is “with it” at every moment.

But, there is no excuse for not hustling and playing hard.

I know there are others like Soriano. He is in no way the only one out there.

Is it too much to ask for everyone to be like Ryne Sandberg???