CBRACKE
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Going into the season we were well aware of the fact that Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano wasn’t 100 percent following a significant quad injury late last season. It seemed only a matter of time until another leg injury put him on the shelf and Tuesday brought that injury, when he was forced to leave the game with a strained right calf muscle.
Soriano approached a fly ball hit by Ken Griffey Jr and with his typical hop approach to making the catch, landed awkwardly and immediately began limping in pain.
“He’ll probably be a while,” Cubs manager Lou Piniella told the Chicago Sun-Times. “It will be a while.”
Soriano was unable to put any weight on the leg and had to be helped off the field, which suggests a DL stint is a near certainly despite the fact the team won’t know the results of his MRI until sometime on Wednesday.
There are really two things I take from this development: (1) I’m about zero percent confident that Soriano will be healthy enough to be anything more than a shell of his former self this season, and (2) Enter Matt Murton.
Soriano was already not running as much this season, with two steals through Tuesday’s game and it’s going to be at least a few weeks before he’s back in the lineup and even when he returns you have to question whether or not he’ll be able to push off the right leg to get the necessary power to rake at the plate.
As for Murton, he’s hit .333 through his first 30 at bats at Triple-A Iowa and even if the Cubs remain reluctant to play him in a regular role, Soriano’s injury could give them the opportunity to showcase M&M in order to deal him later this season. Considering Murton could be a productive regular on many other teams in the league, this potential development should be of interest to fantasy owners. Keep your eyes on the newswire on Wednesday to see whether or not Fonz heads to the DL (I’d be stunned if he didn’t) and who the Cubs call up to take his place on the roster.
NOTE: Soriano was placed on the DL today and second baseman/outfielder Eric Patterson, not Murton, was recalled. It appears that Lou Piniella simply doesn’t agree with the front office’s assessment of Murton’s skills, making it that much more important that the Cubs’ red-headed stepchild of sorts find his way out of a dead end situation in the Windy City.
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