Piniella dealing with 'occurrence'

ST. LOUIS - To manager Lou Piniella, the situation the Cubs face with Hurricane Ike falls under his catchall phrase.

"This is just a little Cubbie occurrence," Piniella said, using his pet expression for strange things that befall the Cubs. "You know what, I am getting used to them. I can smile about them.

"Is it a distraction? I don't know. You can't do anything about the weather."

The weather, however, is doing something to the Cubs' pitching plans.

Piniella had planned to go with a rotation of Jason Marquis, Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster in Houston this weekend, but at least the first two games have been washed out.

Zambrano's start would have been his first since Sept. 2, when he took himself out of a game because of elbow discomfort.

The Cubs will work out Saturday at Wrigley Field and then head somewhere to play the Astros.

"I don't know," Piniella said of his pitching plans. "Let's just wait and see. We have time until Saturday to make decisions. Look, let's just wait, and Saturday we'll have all that information for you on who's going to pitch and see if we even play."

Behind the curve: Lefty Ted Lilly says he has not totally abandoned the curveball, usually an important pitch in his arsenal. Pitching coach Larry Rothschild said Lilly threw "6 or 7" curves in Wednesday's victory over the Cardinals.

Lilly is 14-9 and within 1 win of his single-season high, previously done last year with the Cubs and in 2006 with Toronto.

"I was going to use what was working best," he said Thursday. "My slider was better last night. It's (the curve) a feel pitch."

This and that: The Cubs have four players with at least 20 homers: Alfonso Soriano, Aramis Ramirez, Geovany Soto and Mark DeRosa. They also have four with at least 80 RBI: Ramirez, DeRosa, Soto and Derrek Lee. The only other Cubs teams to do that were the 2004 and 1961 clubs.