7/4 About those LOB …

A day later, it was still hard to believe the Cubs stranded 17 baserunners on Saturday.

“We got three of them in,” Lou Piniella said of the 3-1 win over the Reds. “What I was thinking about sitting on the bench is sooner or later, you have to hit one where nobody’s at. Sooner or later, you have to put the ball in play, it’s going to find a little seam, it’s going to find a hole, somebody’s going to lose it in the sun, anything.

“Finally we had a little ball that [Alfonso] Soriano dumped into center field and the ball [Geovany] Soto hit, and the first thing I’m thinking is why did that ball go into the ivy?”

Soto’s hit was declared a ground-rule double when it bounced into the ivy-covered walls.

Another problem Saturday was that Randy Wells seemed to keep coming up with runners on and two outs. Piniella couldn’t think of a word to describe that — it’s not eerie and it’s definitely not a Cubby occurrence.

“I don’t mention that anymore,” Piniella said.

– Carrie Muskat