Korey Lite

It's really gotten easy to hate Alfonso Soriano. It's almost as easy to hate him as it was Corey Patterson, just without a sheer level of bile.

See, Corey was not only a fundamentally unsound player, not only was he stubborn and unwilling to be coached, not only was he shockingly dumb about the game he chose to play professionally, but Corey was a jerk, too.

Soriano clearly isn't a jerk. So he's got that going for him. Which is one thing. Other than that, his approach to the game, especially batting, is grossly irritating. Take tonight. Eighth inning. Jason Kendall on second and Daryle Ward at the plate. The Astros, knowing how bad a player Soriano is, walk Ward intentionally. DARYLE WARD!

This guy gets a free pass to get to the $17 million man? The guy with 40 homer power? Why would anyone do this to intentionally face a good player?

The answer is that Soriano is like Dave Kingman. With those two, it's a home run or an out. Given that Soriano only hits the homer about 7% of the time, easy choice.

Soriano pops out of the first pitch.

What really kills is that he hits ahead of a guy like Ryan Theriot who actually has more than a clue about the game. The result of Lou's lineup is that the Cubs basically lead off a game with Theriot, but with one out.

Watching this guy flail as a Cub for the next seven years is going to be very painful, especially as he ages and his skills erode.

When Jim Hendry is holding a radar gun with Ed Lynch down in Daytona as an advanced scout for the Royals in 2009, his legacy is going to be a bunch of "And, with one out, here comes Ryan Theriot to bat," calls by Len Kasper.