Soriano hits leadoff homer, Cubs outlast rain in 6-4 win

Some things are old hat.

Others are brand new. Sometimes, it's tough to tell the difference.

It was like that Wednesday night for the Cubs in a 6-4 victory over the San Diego Padres in a game threatened most of the evening by rain and delayed once for all of four minutes.

After a third and final delay of 58 minutes in the bottom of the eighth, the Cubs were declared the winners.

How about Cubs shortstop Ryan Theriot, who began the month with a power burst only to slump, finding his groove again with 2 homers?

"How about that?" manager Lou Piniella said. "I'm telling you. He told me that 0-for-5 (Tuesday) was a typo."

After a 37-minute delay at the start because of a threat of rain, the teams provided some thunder of their own. For the second straight night, the Padres' Adrian Gonzalez hit a 2-run homer in the first inning. This time, he connected off Ted Lilly, who would go on to toss 61/3 innings to earn his fifth win against 2 losses.

So what was the key for Lilly on a hitter's night with the wind howling straight out?

"I guess one of them was that I didn't have to face Adrian Gonzalez nine times," Lilly said. "It would have been great if he would have hit a couple line-drive basehits. He's, obviously, pretty locked in at the plate."

The Cubs wasted no time with an interesting comeback.

Alfonso Soriano led off the home half against Chris Young with his 11th home run. It was Soriano's 21st career leadoff homer, breaking the Cubs' record he shared with Jimmy Ryan.

It also was his 53rd career leadoff homer, tying him for second all time with Craig Biggio. Rickey Henderson is the all-time leader, with 81.

Theriot followed immediately with his fourth of the year, establishing a career high. Theriot later would add a solo homer in the fourth.

In between, the Cubs got a home run from a familiar face who hadn't been heard from since last year. Catcher Geovany Soto connected on his first of the year, and his first since Sept. 18, when he hit one with a man on in the third.

As many twists and turns as the Cubs' young season has had to date, Piniella expressed amazement before the game that his club had the same record after 32 games (18-14) as it did last year, when it won 97.

The Cubs also were 19-14 last year after 33 games.

Bruce Miles' game tracker

Is that right? Ryan Theriot hit 2 home runs, giving him 5 for the season, a career best. All 12 of Theriot's homers in his career have come at Wrigley Field.

Dynamic duo: Ted Lilly, who pitched Wednesday night, and Rich Harden have combined for the last 4 quality starts by Cubs pitchers. The Cubs now have 19 quality starts, with the starters' ERA in those games being 2.71.

The streak lives: With a seventh-inning single, Kosuke Fukudome extended his hitting streak to six games.

Injury update: The Padres' Luis Rodriguez came out of the game in the seventh inning with a sprained left ankle, suffered while running the bases.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=293629">Ramirez still feeling shoulder pain<span class="date"> [5/14/09]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>