Cubs blow opportunities and test Piniella's patience

Aaron Heilman says it takes time for bullpens to come together.

"There's no real magic formula that you can say, 'Well, if we do this, this and this, then everything's going to click,'" Heilman said after suffering a blown save in Thursday's series-opening 7-4 loss to the Cardinals at Wrigley Field. "Sometimes it takes days. Sometimes it takes weeks. Sometimes it takes a little longer to figure out, but I think we just got to keep going out there, keep being aggressive, keep pitching, and things are going to fall into place."

Days and weeks probably are not the words manager Lou Piniella wants to hear. He tried to deflect a question about whether it was too early to be concerned about the beleaguered bullpen.

"Too early?" Piniella asked. "It's 4:30 in the afternoon."

In other words, maybe it's getting late early for a pen that has replaced the likes of Michael Wuertz, Kerry Wood and Scott Eyre - who are performing well with their new teams - with Heilman, Luis Vizcaino, David Patton and Kevin Gregg.

Not all of these pitchers have thrown poorly all the time this season, but Piniella clearly didn't like what he saw from his relief corps Thursday. To wit:

• Heilman suffered the blown save in the sixth, a half-inning after Kosuke Fukudome put the Cubs ahead 4-3 with a 3-run homer. Starting pitcher Sean Marshall was in line for the victory, but Heilman gave up a game-tying homer to Khalil Greene. Chris Duncan led off the inning with a single but was caught stealing.

• Rookie David Patton walked leadoff hitter Joe Thurston in the seventh. One out later, the Cubs had to walk the dangerous Albert Pujols intentionally. Patton gave up a run-scoring single, as did Neal Cotts.

Piniella has spoken out before about walks.

"All we can do is preach," he said. "That's all we can do, is say what's good for the individual."

• Angel Guzman gave up a leadoff homer to Brian Barden in the eighth as the game got away.

Piniella didn't spare his offense, either. Aside from Fukudome's home run, Cubs batters went without a hit over the last three innings. In the sixth, they loaded the bases with one out, only to see pinch hitter Milton Bradley get called out on strikes and ejected from the game for arguing before Alfonso Soriano flied out.

"Very tough," Soriano said. "We had an opportunity to win the game, and we didn't win. We could have won that game, and we lost."

The Cubs have been without some of their key hitters in the early going, but Piniella is looking for better.

"We need to get some runs in," he said. "We squandered some opportunities, and they took advantage of them, changed the whole momentum of the game. I'm not crazy about the way our offense is functioning, I can tell you that."

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