CHICAGO – His hands jammed into his back pockets, his blue cap pulled tightly over graying hair, Lou Piniella prowls and paces the dugout daily, intently studying the game in front of him. So far, he’s been watching a rerun.

Yes, it’s early. And it’s also so familiar.

The Chicago Cubs are in last place.

The swagger Piniella envisioned with a team that was overhauled in the offseason – with $300 million committed to contracts present and future – has yet to surface.

“We broke spring training really thinking we have a championship ballclub,” said Mark DeRosa, one of the offseason acquisitions. “If you went around and still asked the same question, to a man we think we do.”

But there have been baserunning mistakes, letdowns from the bullpen, an ace with just one win, a star outfielder with no homers and one RBI, an offense that has been erratic, some bizarre plays and several devastating losses.

Hoping to get off to a quick start, especially with a favorable home schedule in April, the Cubs dropped to 3-8 at Wrigley Field after a 5-4, 12-inning loss to Milwaukee on Monday night in which they blew a four-run lead. They began Tuesday 7-12, last in the NL Central.

Piniella didn’t even show up for his postgame news conference after the deflating loss, a rarity for a man who often is blunt, entertaining and humorous during exchanges with reporters. And his hitting coach, Gerald Perry, could be heard having an angry exchange with the umpires in the tunnel leading to the dugout. Piniella had a similar incident with umps last week.

The loss was the second straight in extra innings – the Cubs are now 0-3 in extra innings this season – and dropped them to 0-5 in one-run games.

So far, a team that’s gone almost a century since its last World Series title in 1908 is getting much the same results it experienced last season under Dusty Baker.

And there’s another common thread – often-injured pitchers Mark Prior and Kerry Wood are out of action with injuries. Prior is scheduled for surgery this week, and Wood has tendinitis and has been unable to pitch since late in spring training.

The Cubs have tried to move on, but the slow start has frustrations mounting.

“Look,” Piniella said earlier during the recent homestand, using with one his favorite introductions.

“We’ve been in every game we’ve played. Our pitching for the most part has been pretty darn good. Defensively we’ve actually played really good baseball. We just need to start scoring some runs, and that should come,” he said.

“So what’s happened here in the past I really don’t care about. What I care about is what happens here now presently,” he added.

No. 1 starter Carlos Zambrano, 0-for-April a year ago, has one win. After he and reliever Will Ohman let a 5-0 lead slip away in a loss to the Reds, an agitated Piniella showed flashes of his famous temper when questioned about what wasn’t working.

“What the hell do you think isn’t working? You see the damn game,” he snapped that day.