Kazmir, Soriano snap out of it

Is it ever too late to amend for a bad season?

Scott Kazmir and Alfonso Soriano are trying to make up quickly for lost time. But is it enough to make owners forget about an awful first half?

Doubtful.

Actually, it's Rays and Cubs fans that probably need the most convincing, but Saturday night showed promise for both.

Kazmir: The Rays struggling lefty had lost velocity on his fastball this year. From 95 to 90, Kazmir had regained a couple ticks recently, back up to 92 and tonight, while walking four Royals, the lefty did pitch six solid innings, giving up just 4 hits and 1 ER.

No, you probably can't go out and swap him straight-up for Javier Vazquez, but his stock did raise a bit. Still concerning is the low K total (3 Ks) and is more reminiscent of lefty Joe Saunders than Clayton Kershaw.

Kazmir did leave the game early, in the 7th, but mlb.com is reporting it was just mild cramping and he should be OK.

Soriano: The bad news is he struck out three times tonight. The good news is he jacked a 3-run home run in his old stomping grounds, and lifted the Cubs to a 6-5 win over the Nationals. It also gave hard-luck starter Randy Wells a makeup victory from several he should've won back in May.

Probably most encouraging wasn't so much that Soriano went yard, it was how he did it -- opposite field. And even impressive was that the $136 million man even played, as he jammed his pinkie finger on Thursday and was possibly going to miss the entire series as of Friday night.

My professional advice, as a Soriano owner, is to just be patient. Dropping him, or selling him for pennies will not end well for you. Soriano still has 15 jacks, despite not hitting a HR since June 7.

Is he the 40-HR Soriano of old? I wouldn't take that bet, even on 10-1 odds. But he could still smack a dozen HR the rest of the way and steal 6-8 so don't cut your losses now, especially when he's been moved into a prime RBI spot in the Cubs order.

Remember, Soriano has always been streaky. If his knee was really bothering him the past month-plus, you have to hope the under-reported injury of the year has healed enough and that Soriano goes on one of his patented tears like September of 2007 when he carried the Cubs with 14 September homers.