Try defining this destiny

With Piniella managing like he's done this before and Hendry filling key holes, the Cubs are a team on the right track -- whoever they are

The Cubs are going to win the division. I'm sure of it. The reason is that for all the ups and downs they've had, there's one thing they always can count on for the pennant run.

And if someone could give me a little help here, fill in this next sentence, it would be awfully nice. These columns don't all have to be one-way streets, you know.

It's almost a cliché to say a baseball team needs an identity to win. It must be a speed team, a pitching team, a defense team, a home-run-hitting team. Something. The Cardinals used to be a slap-and-run team. A few years ago, the Angels were a relief-pitching team.

A specific strength provides something to play to, to fall back on in trouble. The Cubs are 126 games into the season after their 4-1 loss Thursday at San Francisco. They're in first place by half a game, with Milwaukee and St. Louis just behind.

But still, they seem undefined. What are they great at? What are they terrible at?

Who are they?

As a team, they're not particularly great at anything, other than picking the right division and league to play in.

''I see a good race,'' manager Lou Piniella told reporters Thursday. ''You never know what's going to happen. It's been close this long, and I don't see any reason why things change. Hopefully, we get hot.''

They move on today to Arizona, the best team in the West, then have three games with the Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field. Two weeks after that, they have five games in seven days against St. Louis. So there's the season.

They need a run now. They're going to do it. I'm sure of it, but I don't know why.

On Thursday, the Cubs picked up outfielder Craig Monroe, a good player having such a bad year in Detroit that the Tigers gave up on him. He'll probably play left field for a week until Alfonso Soriano comes back from his injury. And he'll spot-start after that. But mostly, he's here because the Cubs don't have a right-handed pinch hitter.

''The teams we're playing here,'' Piniella said, ''all have left-handed starters in the rotation.''

This is what good teams do, find their holes and fill them. But the Cubs have made an entire season of that. They live day-to-day.

About a month ago, they held catching tryouts, settling on Koyie Hill and Rob Bowen over Michael Barrett.

All three of those guys are gone now.

Hill gave the Cubs defensive stability at the most important defensive position, just when they needed it. He's available for any team to take now, but no one wants him.

Jason Kendall and Henry Blanco are the Cubs' catchers now.

Players come and go, the tryouts never end, the door never stops revolving. And it went all the way back to the winter, when they built this team.

I guess they're good now because they spent all that money in the offseason. Spend $300 million in a division of small and mid-level markets, and you should be in first place. You should be more than four games over .500, too.

But that's not to say the Cubs have underperformed. They haven't. This goes right to why it's so hard to go from worst to first in one season. Stick with your guys, and they aren't likely to be suddenly good. But put together a bunch of new ones, and you have no identity, no clubhouse culture. Piniella had to sift through an awful lot, figure out who can do what.

That's why the Cubs were so bad early in the season. Cesar Izturis? No chance. Barrett? Gone. Soriano in center field? Nope. Matt Murton? Goodbye. Ryan Theriot and Mike Fontenot were given chances. Felix Pie? Yes, no, yes, no.

The mess started last year, when the Cubs won just 66 games. Now they have 65 wins.

So they brought in this hodgepodge of players. You can fill up with free agents, but you can't find enough of them in one offseason to all fit into one identity.

Some people laughed at the Cubs' approach. But what was the alternative? To stink again?

We still don't know if this is working, not at 65-61. But I think it is.

Maybe if the Cubs do have an identity, it's this: a very smart manager who's almost always awake, leading a bunch of guys who fight to the end.

Surely, Cubs fans know better, after generations of experience, than to believe too much.

I mean, the approach changes. The Cubs bring in a serious manager, spend serious money, bring in serious free agents. And yet, there's St. Louis again.

The lack of identity is holding the Cubs back. Or maybe they're proving you don't need an identity anymore. Which one is it?

Whatever, something seems different here. Cliff Floyd's father dies, and when Floyd rejoins the team, he gets a game-winning hit and says he felt his dad was inside him. Daryle Ward, who hadn't hit a home run all year, pounds an important grand slam. It's as if the gods are on the Cubs' side for once. Either that, or this is one big setup.

I'm going with the gods thing. I'm sure of it.