Fruitful idea by Piniella

HOUSTON - Lou Piniella has a novel plan for the next time the Cubs visit Minute Maid Park.

The plan was hatched before the Cubs went out and crushed the Houston Astros 9-0 Sunday, ending a three-game losing streak.

"Jim Hendry and I were talking before the ballgame," Piniella said, referring to the Cubs' general manager. "I told him, 'We're not going to take any batting practice. We're just going to go out and play.' Today, we went out and scored runs without batting practice. I think when we come here to Houston, we'll make the bus 5:15-5:30 and come out here and stretch and play."

The Cubs (58-40) scored a grand total of 2 runs over the first two games of this series, both losses. Typical of Piniella, he said he believed Cubs hitters were trying to "knock those pumpkins off the train" at Minute Maid.

Those "pumpkins" atop the big left-field wall actually are large oranges (in keeping with the ballpark's sponsor). Oranges, pumpkins, whatever, Piniella's point was the same. If a team gets caught up in its cozy surroundings during batting practice, sometimes it forgets to hit during the game.

That wasn't the case Sunday, as the Cubs outhit the Astros 13-6 and rode the 8-inning performance of starting pitcher Ryan Dempster (11-4), who won for the first time on the road this season.

Derrek Lee hit an RBI double in the first, followed later by Jim Edmonds' run-scoring single. Mike Fontenot made it 3-0 in the fifth with his eighth homer of the season.

"I've been feeling really good at the plate," said Fontenot, who singled in the seventh and drove in 2 with a double in the Cubs' 5-run ninth. "I've been getting good pitches to hit, and I haven't been missing them lately. I think that's been the key to my success lately."

All the while, Dempster was breezing through the Astros lineup. Over the first 4 innings, he had pitch counts of 11, 8, 9 and 13. He threw 104 for the game, and only the Cubs' long ninth inning kept him from going out and trying for his second complete game of the year.

"I tried to throw a lot of strikes and make them put the ball in play," said Dempster, who threw 73 strikes. "I got through some innings really quick there and ran into a little bit of a jam in that one inning and was able to get out of it unscathed."

That inning was the fifth, when Miguel Tejada, Geoff Blum and Hunter Pence opened with singles to load the bases. Dempster bore down and struck out J.R. Towles and pitcher Brandon Backe before Kaz Matsui popped out.

That was the only threat the Astros mounted, as Dempster lowered his ERA from 3.25 to 3.05.

"It was just a good win for us," he said. "Coming out of the break, we didn't play like we wanted to for a couple of days. We didn't want to get swept. It's going to be nice to get on the bird after a 'W' like that. I finally won on the road. Oh, my God. It's such a relief. All the questions can stop now."

Dempster was laughing at that last part, but the Cubs were more than relieved to get out of town with a win. They sent eight men to the plate in the ninth to put it away, with Fontenot hitting his 2-run double and Lee driving in 2 with a single.

"It was a good win for us," Piniella said. "What was nice today was that we got a lot of hits to the opposite field. That means we were staying on the ball. You didn't see that the first two games. You saw a lot of groundballs and high pop-ups toward center and to the pull side of the field. Today, we got a lot of hits to the opposite field, and the ball was hit fairly hard. We need to start swinging the bats better on the road."