Cubs always happy whenever it's 2 of 3

ST. LOUIS - The way Cubs manager Lou Piniella sees it, two out of three isn't bad.

The Cubs' 3-2 victory Thursday night over the Cardinals gave the Cubs two out of three in this series, putting them 5 games ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central.

Once again, the Cubs (88-58) excelled in two of three aspects of the game, pitching and defense, while the hitting struggled.

The Cubs got a quality start from Rich Harden (5-1), who worked 6 innings after having not pitched since Aug. 29.

Kerry Wood ended the game by getting the dangerous Albert Pujols to pop out. Wood stranded two and earned his 30th save in the process.

The Cubs also got big catches from Alfonso Soriano in left field and defensive replacement Kosuke Fukudome in right, who robbed Felipe Lopez at the wall in the eighth.

"What an exciting finish to a baseball game," Piniella said. "I've said all along, when we pitch well, we play good defense and timely hitting. The only thing that's been missing here of late has been the timely hitting."

The Cubs haven't exactly turned into a ping-hitting attack, but they haven't had a home run since Sept. 6, and they've hit homers in only two games this month.

Harden wasn't exactly the power pitcher he has been, but he made the most of his fastball, which clocked in the lower 90s (mph), and a good off-speed pitch. He gave up 5 hits and both St. Louis runs in his 6 innings while walking one and striking out three.

"For not pitching for two weeks, I wanted to keep my walks down; that was my goal today," said Harden, who had five double-digit strikeout games before shoulder woes sidelined him. "Unfortunately I had that one in the sixth inning that came back to hurt me."

The Cubs put a couple of runs across in the fifth against Todd Wellemeyer, 1 coming on a bases-loaded walk by Ryan Theriot and the other on Derrek Lee's RBI groundout. Overall, it was not a good night for Lee, who went 0-for-5 and flung his bat in disgust after a called third strike in the seventh.

"You saw tonight - that's probably the worst I've felt in five years," he said. "What are you going to do? Just keep swinging."

The Cubs got 1 more run in the sixth, on Mike Fontenot's RBI double, before Harden gave up 2. He walked Aaron Miles with one out, and Pujols doubled Miles home. Lopez later hit an RBI single.

"I don't know why everybody puts so much on velocity," Harden said. "Location's always the most important thing, change of speed."

Jeff Samardzija and Carlos Marmol held on before Wood came on in the ninth for the second straight night.

Brendan Ryan doubled, and the Cubs got a break when he overslid third on Cesar Izturis' bunt attempt and was called out. Skip Schumaker singled to put runners on first and third before Wood struck out Miles and popped out Pujols after a visit by Piniella.

"We talked about how we were going to pitch him, and the options," Piniella said. "It's very difficult putting Pujols on and putting the winning run on second base.

"It's such a difficult thing to do. Give our pitcher credit for making some good pitches and going after him and getting him out."

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