CHICAGO — After playing one game at far less than full speed, Milton Bradley is back on the Chicago Cubs’ bench, nursing a lingering groin injury.
“When he’s 100 percent, I’ll put him out there,” manager Lou Piniella said Thursday, one day after Bradley played right field for the first time in more than a week. “I don’t play people unless they’re totally healthy.”
Despite Bradley’s long history of serious injuries, the Cubs signed the switch-hitter to a three-year, $30 million contract during the offseason to bat cleanup and provide balance to what had been a predominantly right-handed lineup.
He had only one hit in the season’s first week before sustaining the groin injury April 12 at Milwaukee. After going hitless in two pinch-hitting appearances, he returned to right field Wednesday and went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts. The one time he did hit a grounder, he didn’t run to first base and was out even though the ball was bobbled. He was booed repeatedly throughout the 3-0 loss to Cincinnati.
A career .280 hitter, Bradley is batting .043 this season. He’s 1-for-23 and has struck out seven times.
The famously volatile Bradley also was ejected for arguing a called third strike during his April 16 pinch-hitting appearance and was suspended two games for making contact with an umpire. Rather than serve the suspension while he recuperates, Bradley has appealed, telling Piniella it’s a matter of “principle.”
Bradley has not been speaking to the media, and he again refused to comment to most reporters Thursday. But he pulled aside the Cubs reporter for MLB.com to vent against the press.
“It’s been frustrating,” he told the Web site after Thursday’s 7-1 loss to Cincinnati. “You come in here and all they want to talk about is how often you get hurt and your attitude and everything. I’ve given them an example right off the bat. I just don’t feel like getting caught up in all the negativity.”
Cubs officials have asked him to talk to the press and Piniella said dealing with the public through the media is part of a ballplayer’s job.
Bradley, however, would have none of it.
“I can sit here and think about the questions I’m going to get and the perfect answer to come up with,” he told MLB.com. “But when it comes to that time, and somebody throws a question at you, just the way they ask it — or the question (itself) — might make me look perturbed. … I just prefer not to talk.
“I never had a problem in my life until I started playing baseball. All of a sudden, there are all these things. I just want to be me,” Bradley said. “I just want to be that guy who plays baseball and enjoys his teammates and has a good time. That’s what I do.”
Unfortunately for the Cubs — and his six previous big league employers — Bradley hasn’t played enough baseball because he’s been hurt so often.
“When he’s ready to go and he’s 100 percent, he’ll let me know,” Piniella said. “When I get him out there, I expect him to run hard and play hard the way he always has.”
When Bradley does return, he’ll be dropped from cleanup to the No. 6 spot, Piniella said, “where he might be a little more comfortable.”
Piniella said Bradley would be available to pinch-hit.
Micah Hoffpauir, a 29-year-old rookie who has been Bradley’s main replacement, is batting .350. But he had trouble in right field Thursday and Piniella said Hoffpauir’s playing time would be reduced.
The manager said he was more likely to slide Kosuke Fukudome from center to right and put Reed Johnson in center. Johnson is hitting .294 and made one of the best catches in the majors this season, leaping to rob Milwaukee’s Prince Fielder of a grand slam.
Also Thursday, the Cubs called up right-hander Jeff Samardzija from Triple-A Iowa and designated right-hander Luis Vizcaino for assignment.
Samardzija, who made a name for himself as a star receiver at Notre Dame, was impressive as a rookie reliever in 2008. The Cubs sent him to Iowa to begin this season to groom him as a starter but Piniella wanted another power arm in the bullpen.
Samardzija allowed two runs on four hits in his one inning of work Thursday.
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