Cubs continue to work with Pie
More help arrived Monday for embattled center fielder Felix Pie.
The Cubs brought minor-league hitting coordinator Dave Keller to Wrigley Field to work with Pie, and Keller will travel with the Cubs to Colorado.
Manager Lou Piniella said that Pie would start today's game against the New York Mets. Reed Johnson started in center field Monday for the sixth straight game.
Keller has worked with Pie throughout Pie's career in the Cubs' system. Pie entered Monday batting .143.
"You can have guys that are perfect in the cage, they go through the drills and they're perfect," Keller said. "You take them out on the field and you go through a little b.p. (batting practice), and they start to lose it a little bit.
"And then, because you add the competition of the game and the adrenaline flow and all the things that go along with the game, it's very, very, very easy to revert back to your old habits.
"I think the most important thing he understands is the changes he's trying to make, he can feel when it's right."
Keller added that Pie's attitude and state of mind are fine and that there is not an overload of information on Pie.
"The only thing that overloads Felix is his desire to do well," Keller said. "It's so much easier to coach guys like that."
Piniella said that the biggest thing with Pie is getting him to shift his weight forward and not simply plant his front, or right, foot.
The question came up as to what is enabling the Cubs to work with Pie at the big-league level instead of in Triple-A.
"Look, we understand it's not an easy thing," Piniella said. "You've got to do it somewhere. He's here with us now, and we're going to work with him and continue to work with him and hope that it catches on.
"We're not getting too drastic with the changes. We're trying to stay as elementary as possible. At the same time, we're trying to get him to weight-shift a little more and get off his back side so that he can have a better pass at the ball and stay in the strike zone a little longer and get to more pitches."