And a great win for the Cubs. It was fun to watch Lilly and Floyd match each other pitch for pitch into the seventh inning before the Cubs broke through. Actually, they almost didn't, when Lee was thrown out at second on a dubious decision to advance on a pitch that got away from Pierzynski but always remained in front of him. The Cubs seemed anxious to squander every opportunity with ill-judged base running when Castro was caught stealing an inning later.
In between, though, they collected a run on a solid double by Soriano and an RBI single by Chad Tracy. Lilly lost the no-hit bid in the ninth, and Marmol made the save an adventure, but the run held up. Lou had a curious lineup again tonight. For some reason he thinks Theriot can lead off. He also seems to have a quota of left-handed hitters, viz., three. Floyd has historically had trouble getting lefties out, so I sort of wondered why Fontenot and Fukudome were not in the lineup, but things worked out for the Cubs despite this aberration.
Just as an aside, I ran some numbers comparing Soriano and Fukudome. You could make a good case that they should be platooned and that might just be the answer. Neither one has had a good June, Soriano sitting at .133 for the month and Fukudome at .185. For the season, both are hitting around .275 with Soriano having more HRs and Fukudome a better OBP. Their RBI are roughly even, and this is fairly significant in that Soriano hits in an RBI spot and Fukudome bats first or second. That's probably because Fukudome is hitting .344 with RISP whereas Soriano is hitting .256. Also interesting is this stat, which further supports the notion of a platoon. Soriano is batting .340 vs. lefties and .250 against righties. Fukudome is batting .282 against righties and .214 against lefties. So I humbly propose this as another potential solution to the dilemma of getting Colvin more playing time. Maybe the most expensive platoon in baseball history, but it makes a lot of sense.
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