Lee’s 2 homers not enough for Pirates

Probably the most fun had at Wrigley Field this summer has occurred over the past two evenings with Paul McCartney in the starring role.

Meanwhile the Cubs, who probably can’t wait to get back from the long and winding road, awoke from their season-long golden slumber again to win their second game in a row as they continue what has been a helter-skelter trek through the NL Central.

A night after winning the series finale against the Cardinals, the Cubs came together behind the solid pitching of Carlos Zambrano to top the Pirates 5-3, despite the best efforts of former teammate Derrek Lee, who carried the weight for the Pirates with a pair of home runs in his Pittsburgh debut.

OK, enough of that.

But in a lost season for the Cubs, all that is left is to have a little fun and play the role of spoilers, and they shined in that role Monday, handing the Pirates (54-53) their sixth loss in their last eight games, dropping them 5½ games behind division-leading Milwaukee.

The big inning for the Cubs was the sixth when they scored three times on RBI from Geovany Soto, Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Pena to give Zambrano (8-6) some much-needed breathing room.

“Personally I feel like I’ve been throwing the ball good,” said Zambrano, who threw 114 pitches in the win. “I was able to battle and pitch six innings.”

The Cubs’ big sixth stole some of the thunder from Lee, who after being a mainstay on the North Side since 2004, suddenly has taken the long and winding road himself.

It began late last season when the Cubs traded him to Atlanta. This year he signed as a free agent with Baltimore and now he’s new on the scene in Pittsburgh.

“My head’s spinning,” Lee told reporters before the game. “I had to look to check what color I was wearing. Yeah, it has been crazy, but when I signed a one-year deal this year, I knew there would be a good chance that I would be moved at the deadline.”

What a debut it would have been had for Lee had the Pirates pulled this one out. Still, all in all, it wasn’t too shabby.

“We’ve all watched him long enough and have so much respect for him, we know he’s capable of that,” Cubs manager Mike Quade said. “Just wish he’d save that stuff for someone else.”

And this from the Cubbie occurrence file: Lee became the first Pirate to hit 2 homers in his Pittsburgh debut since Shawon Dunston did it against Cleveland on Sept. 2, 1997.

Lee’s first homer, a solo shot off Zambrano, tied it 1-1 in the fourth, but it was his second of the night — a 2-run blast off Kerry Wood — that made things quite uncomfortable for the Cubs.

But after Lee’s second blast, Wood rallied to retire the next three batters, Reed Johnson knocked in an insurance run an inning later and Carlos Marmol closed things out with a perfect ninth to pick up his 21st save and give the Cubs their second straight win.

Now the Cubs, for just the second time this season, can make it three in a row when they take the field tonight at PNC Park.