Piecing all Cubs' parts together

CINCINNATI -- When the Cubs opened the season, they had a former Silver Slugger at catcher and a former Gold Glover at shortstop.

They soon found out that not all that glitters is silver or gold.

Considered by many the favorites to win the National League Central out of spring training, the Cubs looked like nothing more than fool's gold early.

They had a record of 22-31 on June 2, and tensions had reached a breaking point in the clubhouse.

Fast forward to Saturday, when the Cubs happily nursed headaches and red eyes, with the knowledge they are the 2007 NL Central champs.

How did it happen? Let us count a few of the ways:

Lou and behold: Manager Lou Piniella saw what he had early on and knew it had to change. One-time Gold Glove shortstop Cesar Izturis found himself benched in favor of Ryan Theriot.

Catcher Michael Barrett, a Silver Slugger winner in 2005, lost out on his chance to be a Golden Gloves boxing champ when he led with his lip and eye in a two-round TKO loss to pitcher Carlos Zambrano. Barrett got himself a one-way ticket to San Diego three weeks after his June 1 bout with Zambrano.

"We had to sort some things out and tinker with things a little bit," Piniella said. "But I thought that we could get back and make a race out of it sometime in August, and we did."

Piniella deflected credit to his players. General manager Jim Hendry made sure Piniella got his due.

"Lou was huge," Hendry said Saturday. "One, he brings such a winning pedigree, and his track record is what happened here. He has the ability to manage the game once it starts. He's a great manager of the bullpen, which he proved time and time again the second half of the season.

"I've been saying this for a long time now: When you go through what happened in April or May, not every man at the top step can get that ship on track again after it goes south. The other thing, which you saw late here, you didn't see any panic. He liked the action; he liked the stretch run. I think the players benefited from that."

What a relief: After a rough couple of months, the bullpen settled down nicely. That coincided with the late-May call-up of former starting pitcher Carlos Marmol.

Marmol entered Saturday having held opponents scoreless in 51 of his 58 games. He also teamed with Bob Howry to provide a potent 1-2 setup combo for closer Ryan Dempster. When Dempster went down with an injury beginning in late June, Howry and Marmol were able to close.

Left of center: When the season began, Alfonso Soriano was the Cubs' center fielder. He hit no home runs in April and came down with a sore leg. Soriano went to left field on April 23, and he wound up crossing the 30-home run barrier.

"First of all, we started the year with Soriano in center field, and that really wasn't … we should have started the season with him in left field," Piniella admitted. "We tried it. It (the move to left) was better for Soriano."

"There were a lot of things going on with me in April," Soriano said Saturday, when he got the day off. "New contract, new city, new team, new position, again. That's part of the game. I moved back to left field and everything is doing well for me and for the team."

The money players: Earlier this year, the big question was why the Cubs weren't hitting homers. In September, the guys who were supposed to hit the homers hit them.

Soriano took 13 September homers into Saturday, tying a club record. Derrek Lee, whose power outage was an early-season mystery, had 7 homers. Aramis Ramirez had 8.

It also helped that ace pitcher Carlos Zambrano turned in two huge September starts, including on Friday, when the Cubs clinched.

"That's what they pay us for, to come through in those situations, especially down the stretch," Ramirez said. "Everybody did what they were supposed to do."

According to Ramirez, you can forget about any magical turning points to the season.

"I think the turning point was when we started to hit and pitch," he said. "That's the turning point, when Zambrano turned his season around, myself. Sori started to hit. When we started hitting and pitching, that was the turning point."