Fukudomania just distant memory as batting average plummets

Kosuke Fukudome's up-and-down first season with the Cubs hit a new low Saturday - the eighth spot on manager Lou Piniella's lineup card.

Piniella hinted at lineup changes after the Cubs scored 2 runs Friday. Surging Mike Fontenot moved into the fifth hole, while the slumping Fukudome dropped down.

The change yielded mixed results Saturday. Fontenot grounded out in the first inning to strand Aramis Ramirez at second base but later singled and walked. Fukudome went 2-for-4 and walked.

Yet the Cubs again managed just 2 runs.

"You take the good with the bad," Piniella said. "We hit well for a long time this year and we were all happy with it, and now we are struggling with it.

"Fontenot has been swinging the bat better, No. 1. And No. 2, it allows me to pinch hit in the five hole if I want to. If they bring in a left-hander, I can send up a right-handed pinch hitter."

After signing Fukudome to a four-year, $48 million contract last December, much of the speculation centered on where to put the right fielder in the Cubs lineup.

Fukudome's high on-base skills made him a logical fit in the second spot ahead of sluggers Derrek Lee and Ramirez. But his left-handed bat could help break up the string of right-handed hitters in the middle of the order.

As it turns out, the Cubs have tried Fukudome everywhere except the No. 3 and No. 9 spots. He's hit fifth most of the season (54 games), but has also batted second (14 games), fourth (three games), sixth (six games), seventh once and now eighth.

Nobody could have seen that coming after Fukudome hit a 3-run homer on Opening Day. He batted .305 in April and .293 in May before falling to .264 in June and now just .185 in July.

Fontenot's arrow is headed in the opposite direction. Given a chance at more playing time when Alfonso Soriano was on the disabled list, Fontenot responded with a .333 average over his last 23 games.

At 5-feet-8, 170 pounds, Fontenot doesn't look like the typical brawny five-hitter. But he has pop in his bat, boasting a .742 slugging percentage in that same span.

"Fontenot has been swinging the bat better, we'll go with that for a while," Piniella said.