Soler

The only bright spot in the Reds series was the debut of Jorge Soler who so far has more than met expectations.  Takes pitches, works the count in his favor, swings at strikes, hits with authority, throws to the right base and hits the cutoff man.  What's wrong with this guy?

Maybe another bright spot was Travis Wood's performance Tuesday night.  Otherwise the Cubs played their usual awful baseball against the Reds.  It is kind of odd, but the Cubs play very badly nearly every time they face the Reds.  It used to be the Brewers who brought out the worst in them, really on both sides.  Nowadays it's the Reds.

On another note, Epstein announced the Cubs would have plenty of money to throw around in the off-season.  About time.  Nothing correlates with success in baseball more than spending money wisely.  A lot of money.

On this topic, everyone seems to think the Cubs need to concentrate on pitching.  Epstein's pitch looked like code for the idea he is going to go after Jon Lester big time in the free agent market.  This is a good thing.  The Cubs have been pretty successful in rescuing under-performing pitching over the past few years.  Wood, Wada, and Arrieta come to mind, not to mention the guys they have flipped like Maholm, Feldman, and Hammel.

They have a solid coaching infrastructure in place that has provided impressive results.  Still, if you are to contend, you need to get a genuine ace.  That's about as far as I would go here.  The Cubs real problem in Epstein's tenure has not been pitching, which has been pretty effective by and large.

The real problem is hitting, or, more precisely, scoring runs.  The Cubs are at or near bottom in every category that leads to scoring runs.  What the Cubs need is a veteran outfielder who hits for average and gets on base.  I'm not sure who that is or if he is available as a free agent, but adding that piece could change a lot, especially if Bryant and Soler deliver and even if Baez turns out to be Soriano-lite.