These Cubs believe they can overcome losing legacy

	Alfonso Soriano was batting .245 with no home runs before going down with a hamstring injury on Monday. Warren Wimmer/WireImage.com
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Over the years -- OK, over the last century or so -- the answer to the question "What's wrong with the Cubs?" has always been pretty easy to come by.

What's wrong with the Cubs? They're the Cubs. Isn't that enough?

This year, though, we have the new Cubs, ready to win with an $300 million offseason transfusion of talent, a new manager, some key players healthy again and a sensational new center fielder waiting to break out. It all sounds so good except, right now, the Cubs are an awfully Cubs-like 5-9. They're in last place in the National League Central. The frustrations, already, are starting to show.

So what's wrong with these Cubs? Surprisingly, not as much as you might suspect. And nothing, it seems, that can't be fixed with an adjustment here and there and a little timely hitting.

"Listen," says manager Lou Piniella, just a couple of days removed from another of his famous post-loss head-bitings, "if we play like we're capable, the pieces are here. [But] losing, in itself, is frustrating, whether the pieces are here or not here."

This is the truth about these Cubs: As bad as they have looked at times in the first couple of weeks, they are better than they were last season in every phase of the game. They lost 96 games in 2006, granted, so getting better shouldn't be that difficult.

But with Derrek Lee healthy and back at first base, with Aramis Ramirez re-signed and semi-healthy at third, with the acquisition of slugger Alfonso Soriano and the imminent emergence of scintillating centerfielder-of-the-future Felix Pie, the Cubs figure to be a much better offensive team. With the signing of free-agents Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis, they should be OK pitching-wise, too.

So why all the moaning and groaning? It's the same answer: Because they're the Cubs.

"I'm not concerned at all. In fact, I'm tremendously encouraged," says Randy Bush, the team's assistant general manager. "If you would have told me that Ted Lilly and Jason Marquis and Rich Hill would have pitched the way they've pitched so far ... are you kidding me?

"The starting pitching has been very, very good. The bullpen -- a couple of glitches here and there but, for the most part, very good. When you get good pitching, you just know everything is going to work out."

If you want to point to one major hiccup so far in this grand Cubs' plan, it's that all those hitters aren't exactly hitting yet. That's nothing unusual this early in the season. Scoring, in this month of snowouts and sub-40 temperatures, is down all over the league.

But the Cubs aren't walking any, either, which makes their on-base percentage (.319) one of the worst in the NL. A little known statistical law: It's harder to score when no one gets on base.