Already pointing fingers

The Cubs should have won their six-game opening road trip, or at least the three-game set at Cincinnati that slipped away in the late innings Sunday. Why the Cubs have had so much trouble in the Great American Ballpark in early April for the past several years is beyond me.

Alfonso Soriano was the goat of the day yesterday, dropping one fly ball and letting another fall safely foul, contributing to the Reds' comeback. Naturally it was a prominent topic on the call-in shows.

We know by now what to expect from Soriano, and defense isn't it. He came up as a second-baseman and fought a move to the outfield once he was on his third big-league team. And he just isn't very good at it. Like tee-ball coaches, Lou Piniella needs to accept that and play him where his glove will be the least possible liability. For the time being I say that should mean a move to right field.

Slipping under the radar because of the Soriano snafu is the performance of Esmailin Caridad. Caridad took it on the chin for the second time in three days yesterday, entering the game just in time to walk in the game-winning run, inherited from and charged to John Grabow, after giving up a game-winning grand slam Friday.

I just don't think you pitch an unproven youngster with the game on the line two days after an outing like that. I'd like to see him pitch effectively in some 8-2 games before dropping him back into a clutch situation.

But roll it back to before Grabow got in trouble. Sean Marshall came on in relief after Soriano's hop and drop, giving up the unearned tying run on a single before snapping off two swinging strikeouts. Is there really so little confidence in Marshall that he gets pulled after 2/3 of an inning? With the excess of potential starters, including Marshall and yesterday's starter, Tom Gorzelanny, the Cubs should be able to get from starter to closer using one pitcher most of the time. No major league team should need four pitchers to get five outs. I've said it many times, the more pitchers you use in any given game, the better the odds of finding the guy whose stuff isn't working that day.

And I can't fail to mention that the Cubs let a guy off the hook in his professional debut by scoring only once on seven walks and four hits in six and a third. Mike Leake also went 2-for-2.

At least it's only one of 162, but I'd prefer to not see this kind of baseball become a habit. The Cubs need more games like Saturday's, when they won without leaving a single runner on base for the first time in over 13,000 games since 1924.

Let's hope the Cubbies turn it around at home and put all that behind them. Ryan Dempster and the Brewers' Doug Davis square off in the home opener at 1:20 this afternoon.