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Soriano, Cubs top Rockies for sixth straight win

May 31, 2008 - 9:46 PM CHICAGO (Ticker) -- The Chicago Cubs continued an impressive homestand on Saturday.

Alfonso Soriano homered and drove in three runs as the Cubs won their sixth straight game with a 5-4 victory over the struggling Colorado Rockies.

Soriano hit a two-run blast in the bottom of the second inning and added an RBI single in the fourth for the Cubs, who can wrap up a perfect seven-game homestand in the finale of a four-game series with Colorado on Sunday.

It was the seventh straight home win overall for Chicago, which improved to a National League-best 25-8 at Wrigley Field.

"I'm not getting caught up in that (Chicago's record)," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. "It's still too early. We need to continue to play good baseball. We have something like 22 of our next 32 games on the road, starting Monday (in San Diego). So we need to keep our focus on winning."

Chicago starter Ryan Dempster (7-2) allowed three runs in five innings, improving to 7-0 at Wrigley Field this season. The righthander gave up three hits and four walks, striking out seven during his 93-pitch outing.

"I'm not always bothered by walks," Dempster said. "But today I created my own jams and had to work out of them. I had to throw more pitches than I wanted to, and it cost me time on the mound."

After Chicago fell behind, 2-0, Dempster helped the Cubs with his bat, driving in Chicago's first run with an RBI double to center in the second, cutting the deficit in half.

Soriano then drove an 0-2 pitch off Rockies starter Glendon Rusch (1-3) just over the wall in right-center field, scoring Dempster and giving the Cubs the lead for good.

"Dempster's at-bat was the key to the inning," Soriano said. "He kept it going, giving me a chance to drive in the runs."

Geovany Soto doubled in a run in the third and Soriano's RBI in the fourth extended Chicago's lead to 5-2.

Making his first start since 2006, Rusch lasted just 4 2/3 innings, surrendering five runs and nine hits, striking out four with one walk.

Four Cubs relievers combined to pitch the final four innings. Carlos Marmol allowed a two-out solo home run to Scott Podsednik in the ninth but struck out Willy Taveras to earn his third save.

"Give their bullpen a lot of credit," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "They shut us down. We only had four hits in the game, three of them were home runs. We weren't able to get the hits when we needed them."

Omar Quintanilla and Todd Helton also homered for Colorado, which lost its sixth straight game.

"You don't like to lose, but as long as you and your teammates play hard, you can deal with it," Helton said. "That's kind of the barometer of the team - if you start to see guys starting to slack off and kind of giving up. You're definitely not going to get that here."