All's Wells that ends well: New guy solid again

What looked like an easy Cubs win turned into a nail-biter, as they blew a 4-0 lead in the top of the ninth to the Astros in front of 40,549 shocked fans. But they came back in the bottom half to win their season-high fifth straight game, 5-4 and move into second place in the NL East, a half-game back of the Brewers.

Cubs starter Randy Wells still hasn't allowed an earned run in the major leagues, but he still doesn't have a win.

The rookie right-hander stretched his streak of consecutive scoreless inning to 16 1/3, blanking the Astros through 6 innings on 4 hits and 3 walks, striking out 4 and departing with a 3-0 lead after throwing 97 pitches, 54 for strikes. That's the longest scoreless streak to begin a Cubs career since 1993, when Jose Guzman threw 17 1/3 scoreless innings.

After Angel Guzman and Carlos Marmol preserved the shutout by pitching a perfect seventh and eighth, respectively, the Cubs made it 4-0 in the eighth. But closer Kevin Gregg was torched for 4 earned runs in the top of the ninth.

"It was ugly," Gregg said. "I threw everything down the middle. I think I could have hit myself today."

Every Astros player he faced did. Lance Berkman and Cubs-killer Carlos Lee hit back-to-back homers to cut the lead in half, and Miguel Tejada and Hunter Pence followed with singles, putting runners at the corners. Geoff Blum was grazed by a pitch, loading the bases and ending the outing for Gregg, who suffered a glancing blow off the top of his right hand on Pence's line shot up the middle but said he was fine.

Ivan Rodriguez greeted Aaron Heilman with a game-tying, 2-run single to left, but the next tw o hitters flied out to right fielder Kosuke Fukudome. Blum walked to load the bases, but Sean Marshall, who was skipped in the rotation Saturday, got Berkman to ground out.

The Cubs took Gregg off the hook in the bottom of the ninth when 31-year-old rookie Bobby Scales walked and was bunted to second by Aaron Miles before Alfonso Soriano blooped a pop-up single to right. Scales slid head-first across the plate as right-fielder Hunter Pence's throw sailed over Rodriguez's head.

"I guess I kind of stole that one," said Marshall, who picked up the win by throwing just 3 pitches. "Randy Wells pitched extremely well today."

In his only other start, May 8 against the Brewers, Wells went 5 innings in a no-decision after four relief appearances.

"Wells has pitched two outstanding games, and he still doesn't have a win," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. "But if he continues pitching like that, he's going to win quite a few games."

The Cubs managed just 2 hits through 5 innings against Astros starter Roy Oswalt, but they put together 4 hits and 3 runs in the sixth on a Derrek Lee RBI single, followed immediately by Micah Hoffpauer's fourth homer of the season, which put the Cubs up 3-0.

The Cubs added another run in the eighth when Geovany Soto's infield single scored Fukudome, but they still needed the late heroics to survive.

"That was a little too exciting for me," Piniella said. "When you take a 4-run lead into the ninth, that should be more than enough to win a ball game."

<p class="factboxheadblack">Bob LeGere's game tracker</p> <p class="News"><b>Team game:</b> Rookie Bobby Scales saw his six-game hitting streak end, going 0-for-3, but he scored the winning run after walking to lead off the ninth, which was fine with him. "It ain't about the name on the bat," Scales said. "I don't care about that. I've maintained all along my only goal is to come up here and help this team win any way I could."</p> <p class="News"><b>Time to battle:</b> Slumping Mike Fontenot went 0-for-4 with 3 strikeouts, dropping his average to .210. Lou Piniella hasn't given up on him, but his playing time could be tweaked.</p> <p class="News">"We're going to play him," Piniella said. "(But) I might mix and match a little bit just to play our bench. He's a part of our lineup, and he's capable and will perform better than he has."</p> <p class="News"><b>The little things:</b> Ryan Theriot and Aaron Miles both laid down perfectly executed sacrifice bunts, and both times it led to a Cubs run.</p>