Piniella: Ask players why they're not hitting

To use the parlance of the day, maybe "it is what it is" with the Cubs offense - and what it's going to be.

For the second game in a row, the Cubs' bats were put to sleep by an Atlanta Braves pitcher. At cool and damp Wrigley Field on Wednesday, Kenshin Kawakami and the Braves bullpen held the Cubs to 6 hits as the Braves left town with a 4-1 victory and two out of three in this series.

Before the game, Cubs manager Lou Piniella cited the Cubs being 15th in runs scored in the National League. After the game, he left it for others to explain.

"We talked about it before the ballgame. There no sense talking about it anymore," said Piniella, whose team fell back to .500 at 41-41. "Frustrating? Look. Let's just enjoy a day off and get ready for the Cardinals. What else can I say?

"There's nothing else to say, there really isn't. We've just got to start swinging the bats better if we're going to do anything in this division or the rest of the year, and that's really the bottom line. I get asked the same questions every day, every day. I think what you need to do is go ask the players why they're not hitting instead of asking me. They can probably give you a much better insight than I can.

"Or go talk to the hitting coach."

The calling of the witnesses begins with hitting coach Von Joshua, who replaced Gerald Perry on June 14.

"For me, a lot of it is, outside of guys putting a lot of added pressure on themselves, the big thing I'm seeing is ... everybody's trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark," Joshua said. "I'm trying to stress to them that you don't have to hit the ball out of the ballpark to score runs.

"Today, each one of our left-handed hitters, against their starting pitcher ... he was painting the outside of the plate, and they're all rolling over and trying to pull the ball until (Kosuke) Fukudome hit the ball to left field, the way you should hit the ball, where his pitches are. He hit it out of the ballpark. I'm just trying to get the guys to relax and not try to pull everything."

Now for some players.

"I think that's everywhere; I think that's baseball," said shortstop Ryan Theriot, who was 2-for-4. "I just think that's the way it is. You're not going to score a ton of runs every game."

First baseman Derrek Lee chose the old "tip-of-the-cap" answer the Cubs gave to Braves pitcher Javier Vazquez the previous night.

"The guy (Kawakami) pitched a great game, obviously," Lee said. "Sometimes you tip your cap, and today is one of those days. He did his job and pitched well. There are days when we haven't swung the bats, and today I think the pitcher did his job and pitched a good game."

Cubs pitcher Kevin Hart started for the first time in the majors and lasted 5 innings and giving up 1 run. Angel Guzman gave up a homer to Casey Kotchman leading off the sixth.

The Cubs scored their lone run in the bottom of the inning on Fukudome's leadoff homer. They threatened briefly in the seventh and eighth, but could not score.

"These are big-league guys, and some of them making a lot of money," Joshua said. "You show them on the video what's going on. I've showed some of the guys what's going on with their mechanics and why they're doing what they're doing. You got to execute. Major-league players.

"The thing I see right now is the guys really aren't making adjustments. The pitchers are doing certain things to them, and they're not adjusting to what the pitchers are doing to them. That's a mindset."

For the Cubs, it's not a very good one right now.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=305696">Fukudome gets it done batting in leadoff spot<span class="date"> [7/8/09]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=305730">Soto sustains oblique injury<span class="date"> [7/8/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>   <p class="factboxtextbold12col"><b>Bruce Miles game tracker</b></p> <p class="factboxtextbold12col">It's a start: Kevin Hart made his first major-league start, working 5 innings and giving up 4 hits and 1 run. He walked five and struck out three, throwing 89 pitches, 46 for strikes. </p> <p class="factboxtextbold12col">Wednesdays's grad: D. The Cubs committed 2 errors and were sloppy in the field overall. They were 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position, showing how few chances they generated.</p> <p class="factboxtextbold12col">Leading man: Kosuke Fukudome hit his seventh homer of the season. He had 10 last year. Fukudome is 6-for-17 in the leadoff spot since replacing Alfonso Soriano last Saturday. He committed his first error of the season. </p>