It was becoming a Cubbie Occurrence. Load the bases, nobody out. A team named the New York Mets just begging to be put away for the night.

Then, Mark DeRosa does his Alfonso Soriano swing-at-all-costs-as-hard-as-you-can impression.

Strike out.

Geovany Soto, who has been just short of perfect since the first week of the season pops into an infield fly.

Two outs.

Up comes Ronny Cedeno, a guy that generally makes you cringe when you see him at the plate due to his lack of patience at the plate. Here comes three quick whiffs, right?

He takes strike one. He takes ball one. That's surprising. He never takes two pitches at home.

He whiffs on strike two. Yeah, here comes the third strike. We've seen this before. A lot.

Foul.
Foul.
Foul.
Single up the middle, 2 runs scored. What?!?! What just happened?

Then Pie takes two balls away from him before smacking a game ending three run dinger. What again?!?!

It's amazing what can happen in a year. And it's all due to Lou Piniella. Earlier today, Bad Kermit over at Hire Jim Essian noted that, "This team is leaps and bounds better than the 2007 version."

Not really. They are not leaps and bounds better than last year. They are leaps, bounds, parsecs, alternate universes better than they were last April when this team was littered with schmucks like Michael Barrett, Ceasar Isturis, and Jacque Jones.

They are certainly better now than they were last September, at least on offense. But the leaps and bounds appearance now is because we are comparing it to one year ago, before the Lou Piniella enema he gave the team's roster last June.

If this team can get reasonable contributions from Felix Pie and Ronny Cedeno, this team is going to be a lot more than simply fun to watch.