Plenty of Hits, Not Many Runs

Lou Piniella gave Milton Bradley and Alfonso Soriano the night off against the Braves Monday, moving Ryan Theriot into the lead-off hole and sliding Jake Fox into the clean-up spot.  The result:  a shutout at the hands of Javier Vazquez and Atlanta.

All right, so the Cubs didn’t score any runs, but they did get 10 hits, 2 each from Theriot and Fox (and one from Derrek Lee who extended his hitting streak to 19 games).  Even if they had scored 10 runs on those 10 hits, the changes were only going to be temporary – Soriano and Bradley are making too much money to be left on the bench.  Which is sad because, frankly, I’d rather see Theriot leading off, Jake Fox playing in left for Soriano and Micah Hoffpauir in right in place of Bradley.

This dilemma is a great argument in favor of not spending big money on free agents.  Then you don’t get stuck with overpriced veterans who are keeping younger, potentially better players out of the line-up.