Major League Baseball

Don't blame Soriano for Cubs' struggles

Published May. 5, 2010 3:53 p.m. ET

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Alfonso Soriano isn’t Billy Williams. Cubs fans can’t seem to forgive him for that.

Yes, the paying customers at Wrigley Field have booed Soriano once again this year. Apparently, they would rather have Todd Hollandsworth, Jason Dubois or Matt Murton in left field.

Maybe Soriano is too wealthy and unpredictable for North Siders to truly love him. Fine. But it's time for them to appreciate what they have.

Because right now, Soriano is the main source of hope surrounding this team.

With Aramis Ramirez batting .149 and Carlos Zambrano in the bullpen, the Cubs don’t look like a threat to the Cardinals in the National League Central. St. Louis has a well-rounded team. Chicago is stuck with a mediocre 13-14 record.

But Soriano is enjoying his finest season as a Cub. He has slugged five home runs in the past four games. He’s on pace to drive in over 100 runs for the first time since 2005, his final season with the Texas Rangers.

It wasn’t that long ago that Soriano’s sometimes-wandering play in left was a Big Issue for the Cubs. But on Wednesday, manager Lou Piniella elevated him from sixth to fifth in the lineup. The slumping Ramirez dropped to the No. 6 spot.

Who knew that Soriano's big hits would obscure his deficiencies in the field?

That an offensive burst would make skeptics forget about a $136 million price tag ... at least for a little while?

All of a sudden, there are positive vibes from all corners when it comes to Alfonso Soriano.

“This is as good as we’ve seen him swing,” said bench coach Alan Trammell, who has been with the Cubs since 2007. “His work with Rudy is really paying off.”

“Rudy” would be Rudy Jaramillo. He’s the new hitting coach, lured away from the aforementioned Rangers at considerable cost to the Ricketts family.

But the investment has been worthwhile. Last year, the Cubs ranked 10th in the National League in runs scored -- one spot behind the Nationals. Entering this week, they were running fifth.

To the extent that anything in baseball can be easily explained, this one seems pretty simple: Jaramillo and Soriano worked together, with good success, in Texas. Following their reunion in Chicago, Soriano is hitting .321. That’s a big increase over last year’s disappointing .241 average.

A left knee injury that required surgery was a major reason for the underperformance.

“You never want to see someone get booed -- especially at home,” first baseman Derrek Lee said. “If you know Sori, he’s one of the hardest workers here. Always has a smile on his face. But when you’re injured, it limits what you can do. And he was battling that knee the whole season.”

To his credit, the 34-year-old Soriano understands the importance of distributing credit. After one of his home runs against Arizona over the weekend, he arrived in the dugout and immediately wrapped Jaramillo in a big hug.

Soriano said the two are working together every day in the batting cage.

“He fixed my swing,” Soriano explained. “I’m very happy that he’s here. He understands my swing. It’s a good combination.”

To hear Soriano explain it, the adjustment has been simple: He’s showing more patience.

The numbers support that statement. Entering the series against Pittsburgh, he was averaging 4.01 pitches per plate appearance. That’s his highest figure since at least 2002, according to the database at FanGraphs.com.

In other words, he’s getting a better look at the baseball now. And when hitters see the ball well, they tend to hit it.

Sounds simple, but it’s not. If it were always that easy, Soriano wouldn’t be averaging nearly 130 strikeouts per season in the majors.

Soriano says he hasn’t lost his aggressiveness at the plate. And it sure looks like he’s using it selectively.

Consider his second at-bat on Tuesday: He checked his swing on the 1-0 pitch from Paul Maholm. It was tempting, a down-and-away changeup. But he didn’t go.

So he was ahead 2-0. Then 3-0. Then 3-1. Then he swatted a home run over the left field wall.

Had he swung at the second pitch, the at-bat could have unfolded much differently. Maholm would have been able to make his pitch, instead of Soriano’s.

Selectivity was the key.

“That’s what I mean,” Soriano said, in reference to a question about the at-bat. “Those pitches, I swing at before.”

Soriano is walking more, too. He’s also trying to eliminate the hop he takes, semi-instinctively, when catching fly balls in left -- “a bad habit,” he explained. Just like swinging at pitches outside the strike zone, you might say.

And now that he’s addressed one shortcoming, it’s time to tackle another. Imagine that: Alfonso Soriano is looking like a very complete player for an incomplete Cubs team.

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