God’s Wrathwatch: Alfonso Soriano is Having Surgery, May Be Done for Year

Alfonso Soriano has not been right for a long time.

It seemed he was just having a bad year, slumping as he aged. Soriano, the streakiest hitter in baseball, was simply met head on by a deeper and longer “bad” streak than he’d yet seen in his career.

And then the news came out that his knee was bothering him. Really bothering him. For months.

But the rub was, Soriano said the knee wasn’t the cause of his poor performance. And then he had an MRI that revealed… nothing. It was a mystery, and it remains the case. What is wrong with Soriano’s knee, and how can it possibly be unrelated to his crummy performance?

Well the Cubs are going to try and solve the mystery – Soriano is going to have arthroscopic surgery later this month. The doctors will go in, poke around, see what they can find out, and fix whatever needs fixing if they find something to fix.

“Lou said it’s not good to play on one leg,” said Soriano, who had cortisone shot in the knee Sunday. “I was 80 percent, but now I’m down to 50 or 60 percent. I play with my knee on my mind, and I’m scared to get hurt. If we’re out [of it], it’s better to do the surgery before we go to the Dominican [for the off-season].”

The cleanup surgery would sideline Soriano for two weeks, so depending on when he undergoes the procedure, he could miss the rest of the season.

“I had a talk with him before the game and the crux of it is his knee is not strong,” Piniella said. “He’s having trouble playing on it, hitting on it and, in fairness to him, we’re going to have him continue all his exercises with our trainer and revisit this thing down the road.

“There’s no timetable, but for now, we appreciate the fact he wants to play, that he’s a gamer and that he wants to help us.

“But at this time, because of the knee, he’s not able to do that, so we’re going to play Sammy Fuld and whatever else we have to do out in left field.” chicagotribune.com.

I don’t think there’s any reason to believe Soriano will – or should – play again this year.

Interesting that Lou went to Fuld as the guy who will replace Soriano. Fuld has been dazzling on defense, but you have figure Jake Fox stands to pick up more at bats with Soriano out.