All's well that ends well?

In a game that had a ton of feel-good moments - new guy Rich Harden showing off his actability, unheralded Sean Marshall closing the door late, Jim Edmonds driving in 4 runs and Mark DeRosa scoring the game-winner courtesy of Reed Johnson's single up the middle - there was still a dark cloud hanging over Wrigley Field even after the Cubs took, blew, then recaptured the lead for good in the 11th inning of an 8-7 thriller over San Francisco.

That cloud? The performance of reliever Carlos Marmol - and it has some thinking it might be serious.

Marmol came on in the ninth with the Cubs up 7-2 and most everyone among the sellout crowd already making dinner plans. About 20 minutes later, those reservations had to be changed after the Giants scored 5 runs to send the game to extra innings.

For manager Lou Piniella, the straw that broke the camel's back in the ninth came with a runner on third and one out. On a chopper toward first by Jose Castillo, Marmol, while keeping one eye on the runner at third, shoveled a poor toss to first baseman Derrek Lee. The run scored, Castillo was safe, and from there things went downhill quicker than Bode Miller.

"Forget the run, you've got a 5-run lead. All you want are outs in the eighth and ninth innings," Piniella fumed. "He tried to prevent a run from scoring and 5 scored."

Though he had looked more like his old self in his previous 3 outings, Marmol came into Saturday's game with a 10.80 ERA in his previous 11 outings and after Saturday's ninth inning debacle, now sports a 4.13 ERA.

"He had a bad day today," Cubs catcher Geovany Soto said of Marmol. "I'm pretty sure it was just one of those days."

On the other end of the Marmol spectrum were Marshall, Johnson and DeRosa. Marshall pitched 2 innings to pick up his second win in a week.

"It's been a good week for me," Marshall said. "I had a good win on Sunday (in St. Louis) to get my week going right and hopefully we can keep this momentum going the rest of the year."

As for Johnson, the thrill of the game-winning hit never gets old.

"When you're growing up as a little kid you're always '5-4-3-2-1' trying to make the game-winning shot or getting that game-winning hit," he said. "You put yourself in that situation from Little League all the way up to now."

DeRosa, with a little help from the Wrigley faithful, just beat the throw home to score the game-winning run.

"They helped me out," DeRosa admitted. "Sometimes when you're coming around third, you really don't realize what's going on behind you. When I heard them get loud, I put it into another gear - even if I don't know if I have one."

The Cubs are hoping Marmol can get out of neutral. They believe the all-star break will have him revved up and ready to roll.

"We wouldn't be anywhere near where we're at without his contribution. It's been immense," Piniella said, "I'm not going to lose confidence in the guy - he's done too well here, I think the rest here during the break will do him well, and he'll come back and have a real nice second half for us."