Piniella wary of confident Cardinals

Don't count Cubs manager Lou Piniella among those taking the St. Louis Cardinals lightly.

The Cardinals invade Wrigley Field today to open a big four-game series.

"You always worry about a team that won a world championship the year before," Piniella said. "They have that confidence. You can't count them out until they're out."

The Cardinals once were 10½ games out of first place in the NL Central. Entering today, they're 2½ games behind the first-place Brewers and 2 games behind the Cubs.

"They've been playing better as of late," said Cubs pitcher Jason Marquis, a former Cardinal. "Milwaukee's been struggling, and we've just been treading water."

Piniella said he's looking forward to the weekend.

"It's going to be fun for the players and the fans," Piniella said. "Let's hope we can slow down their momentum."

Piniella restated that his club was due to get hot again, too.

"We're going to get hot one more time; I hope it would start today," he said. "But we are going to get hot here one more time. We're not done making noise yet. Right now, it's a struggle. It really is a struggle.

"But what can you do? We're fortunate that the team in front of us has struggled at the same time. Now, you've got the team behind us coming in here, and we got a chance to slow them down a little bit. We'll see what happens."

Zambrano throws: Pitcher Carlos Zambrano threw his regular side session Thursday morning, two days after suffering his second straight loss and having to listen renewed speculation that he might be injured.

"You want to watch?" he said, inviting reporters outside.

Zambrano reported good results and told reporters to tune into Sunday Night Baseball. His next start is Sunday night against the Cardinals.

"He's fine," manager Lou Piniella exclaimed. "I don't know where all this came from."

Fine debut: Lefty Carmen Pignatiello, who went to Providence Catholic High School in far south suburban New Lenox, made his big-league debut Thursday and pitched a scoreless inning, giving up only an infield hit.

The Cubs drafted Pignatiello in 2000, and he had plenty of family members on hand at Wrigley Field.

"I don't think it gets any better than this, pitching for the team you grew up rooting for in your hometown, having your family here to watch you, the other people supporting you throughout the years," Pignatiello said. "I don't think I felt my legs, to be honest with you."

Feeling better: Outfielder Angel Pagan returned to Wrigley Field on Thursday. Pagan has been on the disabled list since Aug. 8 because of colitis.

"We're just waiting for the medication to kick in," Pagan said. "How long is it going to take? That's the big question. I've been afflicted with this for three months. I was trying to play through it. I was trying to see if it would go away, but it never did. It just got worse.

"It's getting better really slowly, but at least it's getting better."