Here's the scoop from Rotoworld:
"The latest from the MRI was that there is a small tear in the quad," manager Lou Piniella said before Monday night's game against Houston. "It's about one centimeter. We think he'll be out four-to-six weeks. We think it will be around Labor Day. We were expecting this. It could have been worse." Well, it is worse than what we were originally told -- that Soriano would only miss two-to-four weeks. This is a mjor blow to a Cubs team that's been baseball's best since early June.
If you haven't heard, Eric Patterson, not Felix Pie, was called up to replace him. Patterson is a solid prospect, too, and had been seeing some time in the outfield, though he came up through the system as a second baseman.
That's actually encouraging to me. Pie has a higher ceiling than Patterson: while he was a flop in his first audition, Pie could come back up and go crazy on the NL for a month. Patterson will probably be relegated to bench duties with Matt Murton, Mark DeRosa, and Mike Fontenot moving around to cover for Soriano's absence.
Now, I guess it's a race: who'll return sooner, Soriano or Sheets?