FOUR! Cardinals tee off on Zambrano, Cubs

As a pitcher, Carlos Zambrano was a better hitter Saturday afternoon.

It was a rare poor start for the Cubs' ace, who never made it out of the fifth inning in a 12-3 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field.

"His location wasn't good at all," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. "That's the hardest I've seen 'Z' get hit in the last two years I've been here."

Zambrano (12-5) gave up 9 runs on 10 hits, 4 of them home runs, the most he has surrendered in his major-league career. It was his first loss at Wrigley this year.

"How many home runs? Four? I lost count," Zambrano said. "There's nothing I can do about it now except move on and think about my next start."

Zambrano's third-inning home run was one of the few offensive highlights for the Cubs. It was the third homer of the season for Zambrano, and he has a franchise-best 15 among pitchers.

"My job is pitching, go to the mound, throw 6 or 7 innings, but today I didn't do my job," Zambrano said. "Hitting a home run is not a good feeling when you have a bad outing. The team is paying for me to pitch and not hit. I didn't enjoy that home run like the day I win."

Zambrano gave up solo home runs to Skip Schumaker and Albert Pujols in the third inning, giving the Cardinals a 3-1 lead.

Troy Glaus' 2-run homer in the fourth made it 5-2, then Glaus chased Zambrano in the fifth with a 3-run blast. Before his first homer, Glaus was 0-for-30 against the Cubs this season.

"Today was a rare game," Zambrano said. "They hit some good pitches except the last one to Troy Glaus. That was right down the middle."

The Cubs couldn't put anything together offensively against Cardinals starter Todd Wellemeyer, who worked into the seventh inning, making mistakes only on home runs by Mark DeRosa and Zambrano.

The Cardinals outhit the Cubs 16-8.

"His fastball was really jumping," Ryan Theriot said of Wellemeyer (9-4). "He had command of it on both sides of the plate."

The Cubs aren't used to seeing Zambrano outpitched and hit as hard as he was.

"As a pitcher you can't expect to be dominating every time out," Theriot said. "You can't be perfect every time and this was one of those times."

About the only intrigue as the game got out of hand was waiting to see if Piniella would use Kerry Wood in the eighth or ninth inning.

Piniella decided against it even though Wood said before the game he was ready to pitch after getting treatment for a second straight day for back tightness.

"I could have pitched him if we really, really needed him to," Piniella said. "I thought of pitching him in the ninth inning to get him some work and the consensus when I asked was one more day would do him better, so we just waited."