Wasted opportunity

I had my first problem with Lou Piniella's managerial style as a Cub today.

In a classic pitchers' duel, the Cubs had their only real scoring opportunity of the day opening the sixth inning. Ryan Theriot followed Alfonso Soriano's leadoff double with a single to put runners on first and third with nobody out.

With a base open, my instinct was to send Theriot on the first pitch and get out of a potential double-play situation. Maybe even try for a delayed double-steal and score Soriano in the event of a bad throw down to second.

But instead of forcing Kyle Lohse's hand and maybe inciting a walk to set up the force, Theriot sat there as Jacque Jones waved at three increasingly bad pitches and Derrek Lee looked at three straight good ones. Had either one of them hit the fly ball that Michael Barrett followed with, we'd have seen extra innings today, but with two gone it was just another out and a scoreless inning.

So where was the call? And what was Jacque Jones doing batting third in the first place when he's still sitting on a goose egg in the RBI department?

It's sad. The Cubs wasted an outstanding start from Ted Lilly and flawless bullpen work by not jumping on Lohse when he left a door open. Soriano's double that inning was the only Cub hit that didn't come off of Theriot's bat, and sometimes you're only going to get one shot against a pitcher having a good day. That's exactly what the Reds did.

In the end, the only run of the day came off a walk, a stolen base and one of only two Reds hits on the afternoon.

All you can do is chalk it up to being only 1 of 162, get ready for the Padres tomorrow and hope Cub pitching was as good as it was today.