Lilly pitches Cubs past ailing Cardinals 4-3

ST. LOUIS - Ted Lilly mowed 'em down and bowled 'em over Wednesday night.

While other Cubs may have been guilty playing not to lose, as manager Lou Piniella charged, Lilly looked like he was ready to go moose hunting with Sarah Palin and use his bare hands.

The tough-guy Cubs pitcher took matters into those hands during a 4-3 victory over the Cardinals. Lilly pitched 8 innings of 1-run ball before giving way to Kerry Wood, who made things interesting by giving up a 2-run homer to Ryan Ludwick and getting his 29th save.

Not only did Lilly seemed to get stronger as the night went on, he seemed to energize himself in the second inning when he crashed into Cards catcher Yadier Molina while trying to score from third base on a grounder.

Lilly was out, but eventually, so was Molina, who had to leave the game in the fifth because of a bruised left thigh.

On top of it all, Lilly claims not to have known about Piniella's comments of the previous night.

"He might be over 100, but he's still got a lot of fire in him," Lilly said when informed.

Piniella laughed when informed of Lilly's "compliment." During his own postgame session, Piniella heaped praise on his pitcher, who improved to 14-9.

"Lilly's stolen bases this year," said Piniella, whose Cubs improved to 87-58 and stayed 4 games ahead of Milwaukee. "He gets wound up during the course of the ballgame. But I'll tell you what. He kept his composure on that mound and really, really pitched 8 wonderful innings of baseball and gave us a chance to win a baseball game."

The Cubs had lost two in a row and eight of nine coming into the game, and one had to wonder how they'd respond after Piniella lit them up the previous night after a 4-3 loss.

"We came out with a lot of intensity," Piniella said. "We've just got to maintain it for nine innings."

The Cubs got all their runs in the second against Braden Looper. Kosuke Fukudome, Mark DeRosa and Felix Pie singled to get things going, with Pie's hit making it 1-0. Lilly bunted into a fielder's choice, but an error by third baseman Felipe Lopez loaded the bases. A throwing error by Lopez on Alfonso Soriano's forceout led to a couple of runs.

After Ryan Theriot grounded out, Derrek Lee bounced one to shortstop Cesar Izturis, who threw home. Lilly, with nowhere to go, crashed into Molina but was tagged out. When Lilly came up to bat in the third, Looper buzzed him on the first pitch, but that was it.

"I'll let the other side talk about him," Cards manager Tony La Russa said of Lilly. "I have no comment on him. - They play the game hard. It goes both ways."

Lilly pleaded innocent of getting his knee up on Molina.

"First of all, I hope he's not hurt; that's definitely not something I'm trying to do," said Lilly, who drilled Atlanta's Yunel Escobar with a pitch last month, upsetting the Braves. "It's almost more dangerous if I slide, and my only other option was just to stand there and let him tag me."

Lilly gave up 5 hits. He got help from left fielder Soriano in the third, when Soriano threw out Izturis trying to score on Albert Pujols' two-out single.

"We were struggling a little to win," Soriano said. "That's huge. That's huge for us. We've had a little frustration here."

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