Don't mesh with the Cubs

Team that can't seem to jell figures there's still time to get it together

After spending $300 million in one offseason to hire a new manager, bring in a mostly new coaching staff, remake the rotation and give the lineup a much-needed face lift, the Cubs were supposed to be ruling the National League Central by this point.

Well, at least playing .500 baseball.

But when you step back and put all those millions of dollars aside, it seems pretty clear it was overly ambitious to believe that simply throwing together a new group of players would deliver immediate results. Especially coming off a 96-loss disaster last season.

''To think that we were going to jump out right away and be a great team and run away from the division, I don't know about that,'' center fielder Jacque Jones said. ''But I think we have a good enough team in here to do it, and do it convincingly.''

The question is when.

Jones grew up with those Minnesota Twins teams before Ozzie Guillen nicknamed them ''Piranhas'' but certainly at a time when they knew how to keep eating away at the competition.

That pesky nature is something clearly missing with Jones' Cubs. So he seemed to be the perfect choice to ask how such a talented collection of players can have such a difficult time scoring meaningful runs.

It was never such a problem for the offensively challenged Twins teams that have ruled the American League Central in recent years.

''This is a different situation,'' Jones said. ''[The Twins were] a bunch of guys who came up together, they played together, took their lumps together and got better together. Here, you bring different guys in from different places, and you've got to mesh and learn to play together and feel each other out. It takes a little time. But we have a good group.''

That's the thing about these Cubs, with new leadoff hitter Alfonso Soriano, a new Mr. Everything in Mark DeRosa and previously overlooked Ryan Theriot clawing his way into the lineup. These guys still are trying to come together as a group.

And it hasn't helped that new manager Lou Piniella keeps juggling his lineup to find the right mix. He might be better served keeping as many hitters as possible in the same spots and letting them all get a feel for how this lineup should work. A hitter prefers that comfort zone, just as a reliever loves to know whether he's getting the eighth or ninth inning.

Discussing lineup changes, though, makes Piniella bristle.

''I don't think we have that type of situation,'' he said, shaking his head. ''I don't think we do.''

Nearly two months into the season, it's time to find out what we have in the 2007 Cubs. The starting pitching is better than most of us expected. The bullpen has been much worse than anyone expected.

But the lineup that looks so loaded on paper continues to offer the most consistently frustrating results. Not individually frustrating, when you consider Derrek Lee took a .353 batting average into Tuesday and cleanup hitter Aramis Ramirez was hitting .297 with 12 home runs and 36 RBI. Even Soriano, who has come under recent fire, was hitting .293 with a respectable .343 on-base percentage -- an OBP that jumps to .360 when he's leading off.

For some reason, they just can't get going as a group.

''What can I say? We have the talent, we just don't get it done,'' Ramirez said. ''I don't know how to explain it.''

Step over to Lee's locker, and you get the same pained expression.

''We need to do a better job of driving in runs,'' said Lee, whose power numbers have dropped despite a strong average. ''We need to do a better job, and we need to do it in a hurry. We were expected to score more runs. On paper, we have a good offensive team. We haven't performed like we are capable of.''

Some players have relied on the old standby that all those day games are killing the Cubs. That's too convenient of an excuse.

''It makes it difficult when the start times are changing, but it's no excuse,'' DeRosa said. ''Once the game starts, that stuff goes out the window.''

The other old standby is blaming the peculiar weather at Wrigley Field.

''I've honestly never seen elements affect a baseball game as much as I've seen the first two months here,'' DeRosa said. ''It has been unbelievable. Some days, you pop a ball up and it's out of the park, and some days you can hit the ball out of Yellowstone and it's not getting out of here. I know from talking to guys that has a tendency to change once it heats up, so I hope it gets hot pretty quick.''

The odd winds always seem to work against the Cubs, even if the opposition manages to score enough runs. Besides, this team was supposed to be built to withstand the crazy conditions at Clark and Addison.

Maybe Jones has the answer: The 2007 Cubs just aren't ripe yet.

''We are just not playing well as a collective group consistently,'' Jones said. ''We still have a whole bunch of time left. Sometimes it takes something like somebody making a hard-nosed play. It's not always scoring 13, 14 runs. Sometimes it's small things that can turn into something that gets you going.''