The forecast on Saturday afternoon called for rain all day. Rich Harden probably wished it had.

The right-hander gave up eight hits and seven earned runs as the Cubs got annihilated by the Brewers 11-2 in front of a subdued Fourth of July crowd at Wrigley. "It was just ugly," Harden said after the game. "It was embarrassing."

That would be a good way to describe the entire team's day. Lou Piniella's bunch managed just seven hits and grounded into three double plays in what has to be one of its worst days of the year. To make matters worse, Alfonso Soriano continued his monthlong slump, going 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, after being dropped to sixth in the batting order.

The Cubs left fielder is now just 27 for his last 160. While Piniella is still determined to give him every chance to work out of his slump, even the veteran manager admitted that he's going to take a look at some videotape of Soriano tomorrow and see if they can fix the problem. It's an idea that the frustrated star is willing to try.

"Anything can help. I'll take it," Soriano said of Piniella's advice. "I don't know what I have to do, just keep fighting and keep working and try to find out my swing and be fine."

That's the type of positive, forget-the-past attitude Piniella tried to impart at the end of this clunker. He was tired of talking about his slumping multimillion-dollar outfielder, his injury-prone starter who had just gotten lit up and the general lack of energy his team appeared to show during the game. The 65-year-old just wanted to enjoy the holiday like everyone else.

"It's amazing about a baseball team and managing a baseball team. If you want to worry, there's always something to worry about," Piniella said. "Let me go home and enjoy the fireworks over at the lake tonight and then tomorrow hopefully we can create some fireworks here as a team."

The thing about managing the Chicago Cubs is that there are usually fireworks every day of the year. On Saturday, they just so happened to flame out like the cheap ones that you find on the side of the road.

Bradley brightens day: Milton Bradley admitted on Friday afternoon that he has gotten used to the harsh treatment he has been receiving from Cubs fans. "I'm used to it now," the right fielder said of the almost constant booing. "It's kind of like coming up to silence."

Bradley heard a few more cheers in the third inning on Saturday when he crushed a two-run homer, providing the only silver lining on the day for the Cubs. "Milton's starting to swing the bat better and we're happy to see that," Piniella said. If only he could do it more consistently, then he would never hear the kind of "silence" he's gotten used to.

Line of the day: As Piniella made his way into the postgame news conference, a reporter greeted him with the phrase, "Momma said there'd be days like this," to which Piniella responded, "Not my mother."

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