Cubs capitalize on Rockies defense in win

The Cubs and Rockies played a messy little game of give and take Thursday night at Wrigley Field.

After the Cubs took an early lead, they tried to give it away. The Rockies were more than glad to take it.

The Rockies then played some major giveaway, and the Cubs were right there to take it all back.

Then in came Cubs reliever Carlos Marmol, who rarely gives up anything, and the Cubs took home a 8-4 victory in the opener of a four-game series.

"Yeah, we did take advantage of opportunities," said manager Lou Piniella. "We put some runs on the board late, in the seventh and eighth innings, to put it away. Yeah, it was a good win, a good come-from behind win."

With the win, the Cubs improved to 33-21, hitting their high-water mark for games over .500 and taking over the best record in baseball from the Tampa Bay Rays, who lost 5-1 to the White Sox.

"We're worried about tomorrow's game already," said first baseman Derrek Lee. "That's all you can worry about."

Like Lee, Piniella wanted no part of that "best record in baseball" stuff.

"If you tell me that with a week to go in the season, then it means a heck of a lot," Piniella said. "Right now, we're just jockeying for position, that's it."

The Cubs led 2-0 early, with Lee hitting his 13th homer of the season, a solo shot in the third. But starting pitcher Jason Marquis put Rockies on base every inning, and it caught up with him in the sixth as Colorado tied the game at 3-3. The Rockies put across a run in the seventh against Michael Wuertz before the Cubs went to work in the bottom of the inning.

Alfonso Soriano and Ryan Theriot singled with one out. Lee hit a dribbler toward third base. Rockies pitcher Matt Herges threw it away at first, allowing Soriano to score. Herges hit Aramis Ramirez, and Geovany Soto hit an opposite-field sacrifice fly to right to put the Cubs ahead 5-4.

Soto came as close as anyone to being excited about the Cubs' position.

"Right now, we're playing really good," he said. "I think we're going to keep rolling. Everybody's doing little stuff. Bring it on, you know."

Marmol brought it in the eighth, striking out two Rockies. In the bottom of the inning, the Cubs put it away, again with a little help from the Rockies. A double by Mark DeRosa started things. Reed Johnson sacrificed, and pitcher Taylor Buchholz allowed all hands to be safe with his throwing error.

Rookie Micah Hoffpauir picked up his first big-league RBI with a broken-bat single up the middle. Soriano finished off with a 2-run single. After that, Kerry Wood closed out the ninth with 3 strikeouts and a single. Piniella used Wood in a non-save situation because Wood had warmed up the previous inning.

So the Cubs are good. They also got a little lucky and took advantage of what the Rockies were giving.

"We didn't play great defense tonight," said Lee, referring to 2 Cubs errors. "I thought Jason pitched a good game and deserved a little bit better. We definitely didn't play good defense, but our offense again picked us up.

"We feel like we have a good team. We expect to win. We go out to win. We're just living up to our own expectations."