Cubs waste no time sending hitting coach back to minors

As expected, the Cubs announced a coaching change after Sunday's season-ending 5-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks at Wrigley Field.

Von Joshua, who replaced Gerald Perry as hitting coach on June 14, was relieved of his duties and offered his former job as hitting coach at Class AAA Iowa.

The rest of the coaching staff will return in 2010.

"I told him it wasn't anything that I was upset with him," said general manager Jim Hendry, who fired Perry and brought Joshua up in June. "He didn't do anything wrong. When you come up from the system in the middle of the year, if things don't make significant differences in improvement, obviously, in my opinion, we need to try to do something different.

"There's no blame to be handed out. We had a lot of guys who didn't swing the bat like they were capable of this year. When Von came up, we were scuffling, and then we never really made a lot progress in some of the same areas we were deficient in the first half."

The Cubs went from 13th in batting average at the time Joshua came up to 12th in the National League (through Saturday). They went from 14th in runs to 10th; 12th in on-base percentage to ninth; 10th in slugging to ninth and 10th in walks to sixth. Hendry said he has not discussed a replacement for Joshua.

Earlier in the day, Hendry said Cubs Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg likely would remain as manager of the Cubs' Class AA Tennessee club, which he led to the Southern League finals this season.

Sandberg has been talked about as a successor to Lou Piniella as manager. It doesn't seem likely Hendry will make Sandberg the hitting coach.

"Ryne will be back managing in the minor leagues," Hendry said. "He's doing a very good job of it. His final assignment will be up to Oneri (farm director Fleita), not myself. He'll probably be back right where he was if we don't have any changes above. He's doing very well. I admire him for the way he's gone about his business."

Firsts for Fuld: When Sam Fuld homered in the fifth inning Sunday, it was not only his first major-league home run, it was his first RBI.

Fuld played in 14 games with the Cubs in 2007. Sunday was his 65th of this season. The homer and RBI came in his 102nd big-league at-bat.

"It took so long, I figured something weird would happen like that," he said. "I didn't know it was going to be a home run. I thought maybe it would be a hit-by-pitch or something like that. It's nice to get that out of the way."

Fuld had an RBI groundout his next time up.

"That's another weird thing," he said. "It takes 100 at-bats to do it, and you get them in 2 at-bats in a row. That's why it's such a funny game sometimes."

Out in style: Derrek Lee got an ovation from the announced crowd of 39,154 after he flied out in the eighth inning. Lee carried the team offensively with a .306 batting average, 35 homers and 111 RBI to go along with a .393 on-base percentage and .579 slugging percentage.

"I wasn't expecting it; I didn't know how to react," Lee said of the applause. "I appreciate it. It was really cool."