Very little could make things worse for the Cubs right now. They are 1-6 on this road trip after winning four straight at home, Lou Piniella is now receiving heat for his "lack of fire" on a national scale, the Cubs' attitude problems have shattered their image in the MLB, ESPN won't let up on Milton Bradley being a loud-mouthed disappointment and Geovany Soto is a 'criminal' because he takes kindly to weed.

Oh yeah, and Mark DeRosa just got traded to the St. Louis Cardinals. If I'm Jim Hendry, I just hired a body guard and got a prescription for Ambien because I won't be able to sleep at night.

Find one good story line for the Cubs right now. Derrek Lee? His streak ended in Detroit, hardly news at the moment. Jake Fox? He cooled off the last two games. Alfonso Soriano hitting .346 on this road trip? Hasn't made a difference. And now the Cubs are actually closer to falling into last place in the NL Central than climbing up to first. Three games against the Pirates, should they go sour, could destroy them.

So there's only one good headline and you can find it on the ever-optimistic Cubs.com: "Aramis takes BP cuts for third straight day."

Aramis Ramirez is the last branch keeping the Cubs from falling completely off the competitive baseball tree. If this team had him in the lineup all this time, the season would already have been written off and ticket sales for July would have taken a sharp decline a few weeks ago. Ram-Ram is right now playing the role of both the Cubs promised savior and their biggest excuse.

In other words, the entire Cub organization and fan base are putting all their chips on Ramirez. If they can't make a run in July with him back and no other injury complications and any amount of distance builds between the Cubs and the Brewers or Cardinals, it's over.

That's a big gamble. From an unbiased outsider's perspective, it's an indicator that the Cubs are done for. The only reason there's hope is because they have done it for two years with this same nucleus of players, and the belief is that if the nucleus is back intact it could fix this team. Maybe so, but a team with so much reliance on one player doesn't seem like a post-season contender to me. I'd almost rather the Cubs prove that they need some serious remodeling than have everyone convinced they could make a run once again just to flop for a third straight season in the NLDS. But the seductive possibility of Ramirez coming back and sparking the offense is too tough for any fan to dismiss, at least as far as curiosity goes.

What's un-ignorable, no matter your optimism level, is that the Cubs have real problems. This isn't just a slump or a one-player answer. This team has some serious mental issues coupled with some unfortunate coincidences (injuries, players having career lows offensively) and some risky off-season transactions that haven't paid off.

Many have pointed fingers at Lou. In my opinion, it's not that he has lost his fire or his passion for managing the game -- it's that he simply doesn't know how to fix this team. It is beyond his capacity. He's got guys losing their tempers and bashing water coolers left and right and a team full of players that let pressure situations like scoring opportunities or big outs get to their heads. How do you coach that? How do you light a fire under you club without adding the pressure that already destroys them?

That, and Lou's too old to radically change his ways to find a solution. The man would have a heart attack. To make matters worse, he's lost patience with the media, so he always appears indifferent because he's tired of facing the music. We want answers, he doesn't have them, and he still has to talk about it every single day at whatever 70-some age he claims to be. 

Unless progress gets made in July, don't expect major trades upstairs to improve the offense this season, especially with an ownership transition and consequent payroll limitations. But that really doesn't matter. Clearly this team's real problems need to be solved from the inside out. Any devoted fan should be able to see that by now.