Soriano chastised, then almost beaned

ATLANTA - There's a whole lot of cause and effect in baseball.

For example, if Alfonso Soriano hadn't stopped and admired a long drive in the first game of Wednesday's day-night doubleheader, it wouldn't have caused a couple problems.

First, Soriano's manager wouldn't have gotten mad at him, causing Soriano to apologize.

And maybe Braves rookie Francisley Bueno wouldn't have thrown a pitch at Soriano's head the next time he came up, an action the Cubs found inexcusable.

There was all that to sort out after a first game in which the Cubs pounded the Braves 10-2 before they won the second game 8-0.

The first matter that Cubs manager Lou Piniella addressed was Soriano not running out the ball, which went for a single instead of a double.

"I talked to Alfonso about it," Piniella said between games. "I told him that he's one of our leaders here, and there's no need for that. He agrees, and he says it won't happen again. It's over."

That part of it was over.

"I apologized to him, and I apologized to my teammates," Soriano said. "I said that's not going to happen again, and I apologized to him."

As far as getting hit goes, Soriano seemed tired of it, especially coming from the Braves. Last season, the Braves threw at him, apparently for admiring a home run. The next night, Cubs pitcher Ted Lilly hit Edgar Renteria and got tossed from the game in the first inning.

On June 11 of this year, Braves pitcher Jeff Bennett hit Soriano, breaking his left hand and knocking him out for six weeks.

"They like to do that, but it's part of the game," said Soriano, who said he didn't want to charge the mound and get tossed and suspended. "Nothing we can do about it. We've got pitchers who can throw to hitters, too."

There were no incidents in the second game, but Cubs players took exception to where Bueno, making his major-league debut, threw the ball.

"It's part of the game, but you can't throw up at someone's head," said center fielder Jim Edmonds, who played eight years in St. Louis under old-schooler Tony La Russa. "You don't throw at people's heads. That's dangerous. I'm sure what he (Soriano) did was wrong. That's part of the game, too. The situation doesn't need to be resolved that way."