Mediocre in the Middle

July has been an uninspired month for Cubs hitters. With Alfonso Soriano out for the past six weeks, the team picked him up big-time going into the All Star break as the league’s leading offense. But over the past couple weeks, the 2, 3, 4, 5 hitters have been struggling to say the least.

Kosuke Fukudome: batting a flat .200 in the past 30 days, but his numbers have declined each month of the season
Derrek Lee: batting .250 in his last 10 games, but only has 2 home runs since June 1st
Aramis Ramirez: batting .190 with 32 k’s in the past 30 days
Geovany Soto: batting .189 in his last 10 games

That the Cubs are still in first place by a couple games (going into today’s action) is nearly a miracle the way the team has been floundering.

Lack of run support has got to be just a killer for a pitcher’s morale. Take Rich Harden for example, in his Cubs debut, he leaves the game with 10k’s and a 7-0 lead only for the bullpen to blow the lead for him. Then yesterday he goes another seven innings of 1-hit (albeit a homer), 10k baseball and gets tagged with a loss.

Soriano is due back any day now, so maybe that will give this lineup a boost. Something to build on. His presence may help to take some pressure off these guys and get back to takin’ care of business like we know they can.

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July 22, 2008 Posted in: lineup, observations, players, stats