The Tribune’s Phil Rogers suggests that it’s not just the toe or the beaning that have slowed Sammy Sosa’s production this year, but that he may well be on the down side of his career. To wit:

Few people seem to have picked up on this, but the increasing rate of injuries and a downturn in performance suggest we very well may have seen his last 50-homer season.

When asked about the critique, manager Dusty Baker of course discounted it, but it makes some sense. More from Rogers:

In the Cubs’ final 41 games last season, Sosa hit six homers in 118 at-bats, finishing the season with 49. He missed nine games with injuries to his neck and back after a collision with Mark bellhorn and seemed to be pressing as he stalled on short of 500 for his career.

When he went onto the disabled list Saturday, Sosa had six homers in 35 games in 2003. It had taken him 122 at-bats to get those homers, including just one in his last 66 at-bats. …

He’s not as reliable anymore. His homer ratio has jumped from one every 10 at-bats to one every 20.

Rogers’ larger point is that this would be alarming except for the Cubs’ surfeit of talented young pitching and in fact may be good for Sosa’s teammates, who might begin relying on each other “instead of always genuflecting in his direction.”

Perhaps. I think Sosa, even if he never has another 50-homer season, will be a solid run producer for at least a couple more years and will probably end his career with the Cubs. That’s fine.

The important thing, as Rogers said, is the pitching. That’s what will make the Cubs a perennial contender. While the Braves may not have had all right the offensive pieces to the puzzle to put together the kind of string the evil, evil Yankees have managed, the reason they’ve won 12 straight division titles is the pitching.

Everything else is kind of interchangeable. You can use the pitching to trade for a run producer, and you can dangle the promise of a bona fide chance, year after year, at a world championship to lure bit-hitting free agents to town.

I hope Sosa is part of a pennant-winning Cubs team and I hope Rogers is wrong. But if he’s right, it’s not the end of the Cubs’ chances. It’s only the beginning.