Soto sustains oblique injury

Another day, another injury.

One day after losing pitcher Ryan Dempster to the disabled list with a broken toe, the Cubs had to scratch catcher Geovany Soto for what they described as a "mild left-oblique strain."

Soto, who suffered the injury during batting practice, went to the hospital for an MRI after the game.

"It's the oblique, but it's really on the low side of it," said manager Lou Piniella.

The Cubs are hopeful that with the injury being lower on Soto's side instead of being more in the rib cage, that it won't be as serious and force a DL stint.

They said Soto could have served as the emergency catcher Wednesday. Left fielder-third baseman Jake Fox came up as a catcher and said he was ready to chip in. He caught two games at Class AAA Iowa this year.

In the minor leagues, the Cubs have veteran Mark Johnson and career minor-leaguer Chris Robinson at Iowa, as well as prospect Steve Clevenger. Welington Castillo, another prospect, is at Class AA Tennessee.

Bradley struggles: Right fielder Milton Bradley was 0-for-4 Wednesday and 0-for-7 in the series. The switch-hitting Bradley is hitting .350 right-handed, but he's 27-for-143 (. 189) left-handed.

"I thought when we were in Detroit, I pointed out to Milton what he was doing on his left side," said hitting coach Von Joshua. "I thought he was making some progress on it. But in this series, he's kind of gone the other way again.

"Basically what he's doing with his mechanics is that he started off open with his lower half, and he's closed with his upper half. He dives with his foot toward the plate and then his upper body continues to turn even more. You can read his whole name on his back before he starts his rotation. You can't hit like that.

"I've pointed that out to him. He's aware of it. He's squared his hands up a little bit. What I'm trying to do is match his upper half to his lower half and match his lower half to his upper half and have everything work as one unit.

"When he dives with his lower half and closes up with his upper half, he can't see the pitch. He has no idea where the pitch is, really."

No answers: General manager Jim Hendry weighed in on the Cubs' offensive struggles.

"We did feel going into the season that we'd have a better-balanced offense," Hendry said. "In some ways, we thought we'd be more productive. We did get more left-handed. We did get guys who were high on-base guys. We got some new guys coming off great years."