Soriano comes through

For anyone still questioning why Alfonso Soriano came back early from his leg injury, this is why.

Soriano's home run in the sixth inning off Chris Capuano, right after Matt Murton went deep, proved to be the winning run in the Cubs' 5-4 win over the Brewers that gave them two out of three in the critical series.

Soriano was 1-for-12 since coming off the disabled list before his homer and had struck out the first three times up.

"He got a big one tonight, and when it counted," said Cubs manager Lou Piniella.

The plan now with the big Milwaukee series over is to give Soriano today off against Houston and have him well-rested for the weekend.

Piniella wasn't worried in the least about Soriano being 1-for-12.

"You remember, he didn't have a rehab assignment and he needs some at-bats to get going," Piniella said. "He's got to get some at-bats and that's part of the coming-back process, seeing some breaking balls, some off-speed pitches and getting his eye on the ball."

Soriano admitted feeling some pressure to produce. He heard more than a few boos after each of his 3 strikeouts.

"I'm not making excuses," Soriano said. "The most important thing is we won this game and now are ahead (of the Brewers) by 2½ games.

"I've been feeling a little anxious, so maybe I have to calm down a little bit more just because I haven't played. I have to see more pitches and be more selective."

The Cubs are looking for a spark offensively for the stretch run -- any kind of spark.

Maybe one of the big guys, Soriano, Derrek Lee or Aramis Ramirez, will ultimately put the team on his back and lead the way.

Or maybe it will be a grinder such as Ryan Theriot, Mark DeRosa or Murton.

Piniella doesn't care who it is, as long as it's somebody.

And Piniella doesn't care how it happens, whether the Cubs finally start to hit home runs or not.

"I'm interested in wins," Piniella said. "If they come via the home run ball, they come via the home run ball. If they come via smallball, it doesn't matter to me.

"At the end of the year they're not (going to) judge us on how many home runs we hit or didn't. They're going to judge us on how many games we won or didn't win and whether we got into the postseason or not."

Murton's homer came with two outs in the sixth and snapped a 3-3 tie. It was just the fifth of the season for Murton, who had only entered the game that inning on a double switch.

"I got a good situation and a good count, 3-2, and got a changeup that was up in the zone," Murton said. "It was huge at-bat for me."

With their 5 runs, the Cubs still have scored only 23 in the last seven games.

"It seems like everybody has been getting their 1 hit, but a lot of them have been meaningless hits," said DeRosa, whose 2-run single in the second inning was anything but meaningless, making it 2-2.