Do Cubs fans have the patience to see this through?

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The Cubs are off to a 6-13 start and rank near the bottom of the MLB in most of the important categories, including ERA, runs scored and errors.

Dale Sveum has this team playing hard and fighting each day, but those are the simple facts. Right now, this is not a championship-caliber team.

That's not to say they won't be next year or in 2014 or even at the end of this season. Nineteen games is hardly a large sample size.

Given the slow start and the 71-91 finish in 2011, some fans are already growing restless, however.

When Theo Epstein was hired, he made it clear from Day 1 that there would be no quick fixes. Everybody was on board right away, but this isn't the way some people pictured it. Some fans certainly wanted a quick fix, and it's hard to blame them after more than a century without a World Series title.

Everybody wondered how long Theo's honeymoon phase would last with the fans. Would the Wrigley Faithful be patient with their rock star executive?

I posed this question to CSN analyst and 12-year MLB veteran Todd Hollandsworth earlier this season.

"I don't expect them to be patient," Hollandsworth said. "When you're with your brothers and sisters that attend games, you might get a little mad at them for not sticking it out through the growing process.

"But I absolutely believe we will see that when they turn this around and the Cubs become the organization they have hopes of becoming, the fans will all come out in full force. The place will be packed each and every day and each and every night. That's just how it's going to be. But right now, you're going to lose some attendance based on the performance."

Many in the past have tried the quick fix to turn things around, throwing money at free agents like Alfonso Soriano. But that course of action didn't bring about a championship.

"They've tried to piece this thing together forever and it has not worked," Hollandsworth said. "It's been band-aid solutions. And the band-aids have been ripped off and the wound gets bigger. This is something that has needed to go all the way back to the depths of the minor-league system and be rebuilt, turned over, reinvested."

One of the things Theo has tried to do to help is establish "The Cubs Way" from the lowest of minor league levels right up to the majors. Hollandsworth went through a similar tactic with the Dodgers, the organization that made him a third-round pick in the 1991 draft.

"I grew up in a farm system with a culture and ideas that were just sound all the way from short-season A-ball all the way to the major-league club," he said. "Tommy Lasorda was running that camp. That's who we were. 'Bleeding Dodger Blue' was the saying.

"The Cubs aren't looking to 'Bleed Cubbie Blue' but I will say this -- when they players know it, they players want to see each other succeed. They feel the desire to support and pull for each other. And then you build a core team from within. You have guys that lean on each other like brothers.

"It will take some time. There will always be the small victoriees. That's what I continue to challenge fans -- to see the small victories in each game."

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