my.nwi.com

The just-completed 2-5 West Coast road trip leaves the North Siders a whopping eight games behind first place St. Louis in the National League Central Division, and seven games behind Colorado for the wild-card berth in the National League.

The manager is supposed to set the tone for a team, and Piniella is not setting one of much inspiration or even desperation. Camera shots into the dugout show Piniella either with a frustrated look of "what the heck is going on here?" or just a tired, beaten down old man that is starting to cave in to the pressure of managing the Cubs.

There is speculation Piniella never recovered from the Cubs getting swept against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the first round of last year's playoffs after a 97-win regular season. This season has been a combination of injuries (Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano, Ryan Dempster, Geovany Soto), questionable off-season moves by Hendry (Milton Bradley and Kevin Gregg have both been busts) and some talented players having horrible seasons (Alfonso Soriano, Soto).

Of course the players want him back with the tail wagging the dog mentality that currently exists. Big Z doesn't want to always do his exercises between starts to strengthen his back? Don't worry about it big guy. Come back when you are ready. Bradley not driving in many runs? Move him to second place in the batting order, where he can walk whenever he wants even though he is being paid ($10 million a year) to be a middle-of-the-order run producer.

It's so bad several of my friends and co-workers who are the most optimistic Cub fans you can imagine have been walking around with bitter beer face the past few weeks and have turned their attention to the Bears.