One on one with ... Lou Piniella.(Baseball)

Under the direction of Lou Piniella, the perennially hapless Devil Rays appear to be turning things around and are 19-17 since the All-Star break. Free-lance writer Dennis Turtle talked with Piniella about his new challenge, his legendary temper and Tampa Bay's future.

TSN: Has the job been easier or harder than you expected?

LP: It's not an easy managing job. It really isn't. We had to put together an entire pitching staff in spring training and put together a whole new lineup. We have a lot of young kids who haven't spent much time in professional baseball, least of all the big leagues. So, a big part of this job has been evaluating. We've got to know exactly what we have here so we don't duplicate it when we bring in some help this off-season.

TSN: How many players are you away from being a .500 team?

LP: Five. We're going to need some starting pitchers, mad we need a little pop, especially from the right side.

TSN: You said last winter you had to be patient. Have you been?

LP: The manager's body temperature has been fine. We lost a lot of games earlier this year due to inexperience. We still walk too many people, and we make a make a lot of easy errors--errors that are more concentration than physical or mental. Those are errors we can cut down on. That's not asking too much.