The Cubs had an off-day today before a week of interleague play at home where they cannot use Soriano at DH. Aside from winning a game behind Ryan Dempster on Sunday, the good news is that they appear to have succeeded in signing the highly touted young Cuban outfielder Jorge Soler. He is at least a year or two away from the majors, but he appears to be a solid young talent.
The bad news is the Cubs are happy with their approach at the plate, at least according to Rudy Jaramillo. Lets hope they do not let Rudy anywhere near this Soler kid. There are some guys who manage to hang around major league baseball for a long time and achieve an outsized reputation in the process. Jaramillo is one of them. Lets not forget that the Rangers went to the series in the two years after Jaramillo's departure. Since his arrival in Chicago, the Cubs batting statistics have steadily deteriorated.
If you don't believe me, take a look at this year. The Cubs rank 27th of 30 major league teams in runs scored, OBP, and bases-on-balls, moving up to 26th in OPS. They scoot up to 6th in hitting into double plays. I could go on and on, but you get the picture. So far the Cubs have scored 222 runs in 60 games, a little over a third of the season. That's an average of 3.7 runs per game. They are on a pace to score just about 600 runs if they are lucky, which is not just bad but awful.
Anyway, Rudy is pretty happy with the Cubs approach at the plate. So what is wrong with this picture and why is he still on the staff?
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