Fire the hitting coach that will solve things. The team is now slumping and this isn’t the first offense slump of the year. Best case scenario is that it only lasts a few more games and they can get back on track.

We are lucky to be where we are at with the kind of production we have gotten out of some of the players. Lets look at that as a positive and go from there.

Gerald Perry is good.

I liked about Lou a couple of years ago was he would play the hot bat. But Hoff can’t make it into the lineup. Koyie does well when he plays twice a month. He keeps hoping that Fonty and Geo will hit their way out of the slump. I’m not saying to bench them, just give them more regular rest to change their focus.

Johnson, Miles and Fontenot may be hitting what should be expected. Reed Johnson’s line in his final year in Toronto was .236 / .305 / .320. Look a bit familiar? Remember Johnson was released by the Blue Jays. Fontenot is starting for the first time, maybe he shouldn’t be. I’m not blaming Perry for Aaron Miles who isn’t much of a hitter to begin with.

Lee? He is hurt and aging rapidly. Bradley? At his age, I’m not sure Perry can help him that much.

So that leaves maybe Soto as one that Perry could help.

I think, in all honesty, the answer lies in what we should be expecting of the Cubs batters. I think that there may be some cruel realities along with a few players performing below their abilities.

The cruel realities

- First is D. Lee. He has apparently been playing hurt for a few seasons now with back and neck problems. His power has been decimated and he often cannot catch up to good fastballs. Not only was Lee’s 2005 obviously a flash in the pan, but he looks unlikely to come close to his career average.

- Mike Fontenot is not a starter. Good platoon player? Likely… but not a starter. Playing every day either overexposes him or just is more than he is capable of.

- Alfonso Soriano is, well, Alfonso Soriano. He will have fantastic stints and hit for great power. But he cannot handle hard stuff low and away and why any pitcher ever throws him a strike really is beyond me. But Soriano is never going to be the model of consistency.

- Bench players just aren’t that good. We may want to love Reed Johnson’s gritty style of play but as rlpete pointed out, he was released by Toronto. He is going to contribute at times, but overall, he’s not all that great.

Underperforming players

- Milton Bradley is at the top of the list. Even when he was working pitch counts at the beginning of the season he was not doing much with 3-0, 3-1 pitches. The rest of the team’s struggles have only accentuated Bradley’s rough start.

- Geo Soto may be underperforming or he may be a flash in the pan.Time will tell and hopefully he’ll pick it up, otherwise Soto gives the Cubs the typical good defender/mediocre bat catcher.

So I don’t like blaming Perry. Wish I could because coaches can be changed, but I really don’t think this is about him. I worry that this just isn’t a very good offense.

 does not commend you to me as a friend. A man inadequately sophisticated, or merely ignorant or simply stupid, may believe himself past surprise, then be surprised to discover, for example, that Mr. Hearst already knows of my inclinations and finds them immaterial. Suggesting, as a corollary, that your skills for blackmail and manipulation no longer are assets to you, and for your fatuous belief in their efficacy, in fact have become liabilities. In short, you’ve overplayed your hand. Now I should think in consequence, now recognizing yourself as a man past his time, that during this last transitional period you would devote yourself with grateful and quiet diligence to such uses as others may still find you suitable.

Bradley was supposed to rake and the rest never seem to alter their approach at the plate. Soriano can’t be helped or changed but the rest can. Time for a new approach, Larussa got rid of him for a reason!!

If a hitting coach can’t get any players out of an extended funk (read: a month and a half), then what exactly is it that he’s supposed to do?

There was a team that made the playoffs a few years ago; in that year they led their league in runs scored.

Then they got swept out of the playoffs in the first round. They got off to a bad start the next year and almost at this precise point in the season… they decided the problem was the hitting coach. They fired him.

This year’s Cubs? No, the team I’m talking about is the 2000-2001 White Sox. They fired their hitting coach after they got off to a 14-29 start following their playoff season.

Oddly enough, they got hot right after that and went 69-50 the rest of the year, finishing over .500.

The hitting coach that was fired? Von Joshua, now the Cubs’ hitting coach at Iowa.

…that this team is missing 25% of it’s power output with Ramirez on the DL. If you took Pujols out of STL, how would they fare? How about Berkman going down for Houston? David Wright in New York? How did the Yankees fare without Alex Rodriguez? Look, we’re 5-5 since Rami got hurt (including the game he got hurt in) and I’d say that’s pretty damn good, all things considered. We’ve got another 40 games to go (give or take) until he’s ready to come back… If we fire a coach every time we go .500 on a 10 game swing, we’ll be out of coaches 10-20 games before he even gets back!

Lou is going to shake things up, he’s done it the past 2 years when the team has been in a funk, and it’s worked quite well each time. He knows how to inspire confidence in an otherwise down and out team. We all give Lou a lot of crap for some of the on-field moves he makes, but I think we often overlook what we does off the field, and especially, behind closed doors.

We’re going to be ok, guys. I’m JUST as upset as all of you are that the team isn’t playing well, and it hurts even more that we’re not playing well against the hated Cardinals… But look, no one is running away with this division… we’re 3 (THREE) games out on May 21st with our BEST position player gone… if we’re 3 games out when he comes back, you know where that’d put us? In a race to win the division.

So everyone just relax, take the good with that bad… hey, it could be worse – we could be down 2-0 and playing the Red Wings ;-) (ps, that hurts to even say it)

Methinks if you pointed a finger at him, he’d break it off.

Look, if the hitting coach has that much sway over the team, shouldn’t we trust the guy who helped the Cubs score the most runs in the National League last year? I’m sure he’s doing all he can. The Cubs offense just has to play through this and get to the other side. It sucks, I know. But pointing fingers at the coaching staff isn’t going to do much besides thrown the team into further chaos.

Are there better options in the minors? Um, you could ask Josh, but my guess would be a big fat no. Yeah, there’s Jake Fox, but he has no defensive position. And there’s certainly no guarantee the Cubs could just drop him in the lineup and watch him hit two home runs a game.

Oh, and I’d advise looking beyond batting average, too. I’m not sure any of those guys’ OPS is much better, but staring at a player’s batting average doesn’t really tell you all that much and can get awfully depressing.

right after they get a hit.

The Cubs should replace him with Kyosuke Sasaki.

Oh, and can someone post the sarcasm marquee for me.