Ted Lilly has located his strikeout pitch, and Alfonso Soriano has found his batting eye and power.

It was a strong combination Wednesday night, one that led the Chicago Cubs over the San Diego Padres 8-5.

Lilly fanned 11 in six innings to get his third straight win and Soriano had his second leadoff homer in as many nights.

“I don’t think I just stand out there and try to throw fastballs by guys,” said Lilly, who has consecutive double-digit strikeout games for the first time in his career.

“I have to mix my pitches and change speeds and locate the ball and things like that,” he said. “And at times, when I got my curveball going, I’m going to get some strikeouts on it. But I’m not going to say I’m a power pitcher.”

Backed by three RBIs apiece from Soriano and Geovany Soto, who also homered, Lilly (4-4) allowed four runs and six hits in six innings. After striking out 10 against Arizona in his previous start, he fanned eight in the first four innings. He left after throwing 102 pitches on a 46-degree night.

Cubs pitchers combined to strike out 15 against the Padres, whose 308 strikeouts are second in the major leagues behind Florida’s 326.

Soriano, who has three homers in as many games, is 10-for-19 over the last five games after a slow start that included a trip to the disabled list. He also had a key two-run single in the second inning after a wild pitch by Jake Peavy on a third strike to Lilly allowed the pitcher to reach. The single gave the Cubs a 3-0 lead.

“I feel great. I’m swinging the bat really well,” said Soriano, who was booed early in the 10-game homestand. “That’s part of the game. It motivates me to try to make myself a better player.”

Peavy (4-3) needed 87 pitches to make it through four innings. He gave up four runs and seven hits, struck out eight and walked two.

The wild pitch was costly.

“It would have been a different game. I still had the chance to make some pitches to Soriano there,” Peavy said. “I’d much rather get Ted Lilly out there than have to face Soriano, but I didn’t. I have to make better pitches. I’m obviously just frustrated. I have to do better than that. Having to get pulled after four is embarrassing.”

Carlos Quentin did what he does every day—checked the lineup card to see if he was playing. This time, he was batting third for the first time this season.

Quentin made White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen look smart when he broke an eighth-inning tie with his first career grand slam in Chicago’s 6-1 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday night.

He also matched his career high with five RBIs and helped spoil John Lackey’s long-awaited return to the Angels’ rotation.

A.J. Pierzynski hit second—one of five players who batted in an unfamiliar slot for the first time this season. The others were Jim Thome (fifth), Paul Konerko (sixth) and Nick Swisher (eighth). Thome came in hitting .209, Konerko .213 and Swisher .206.

“You hit where you hit and you move on. I mean, you can’t really try to over think it,” Pierzynski said. “The two hole is probably the highest I’ve ever hit. It’s something different. Ozzie shook it up and it worked, so I’m sure we’ll probably have the same one tomorrow.”

Jered Weaver looked nothing like a pitcher who had a 7.02 ERA over his previous six starts.

Weaver allowed one hit over seven innings, combining with two relievers on a three-hitter, and Mike Napoli hit a tiebreaking sacrifice fly in the eighth to lead the Los Angeles Angels to a 2-0 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night.

“I just went out there and tried to pitch like the old Jered, and it came out all right,” Weaver said. “It was just adjustments with mechanics in the bullpen between starts. Me and (pitching coach Mike) Butcher were able to clean some stuff up.

“The arm strength’s coming along,” he added. “The more innings I get, the better my arm strength is going to get. That’s the way it’s always been. I always seem to get stronger as the season went along. I guess the six days rest kind of helped, too.”

Manager Mike Scioscia couldn’t have been more pleased with the right-hander’s dramatic turnaround.

“That’s the best stuff Jered’s had in two years,” Scioscia said. “He maintained it and he finished strong. His pitch count got a little high, but the last couple of innings he regrouped and finished hitters off better. You can’t throw the ball much better than Weave did tonight. It’s very encouraging.”

A.J. Pierzynski’s leadoff single in the fifth was the only hit off Weaver, who pitched seven innings. He struck out six and walked one, coming out of the game after 109 pitches. He came in 1-4 since pitching seven scoreless innings of three-hit ball in a 2-1 win over Texas on April 5.

“He just missed our bats,” Jermaine Dye said. “I mean, he threw a lot of breaking pitches, a lot of changeups in hitter’s counts, and was able to get ground balls and flyballs.”

Chicago starter John Danks had a hard-luck no-decision, although he had to work hard for it. Pitching against the Angels for the first time in his career, he scattered seven hits and two walks over 6 1-3 innings, struck out five and never retired the side in order.

Danks departed with one out and the bases loaded in the seventh after walking Gary Matthews Jr. with his 99th and final pitch. Octavio Dotel struck out Erick Aybar and Vladimir Guerrero to escape the jam.

But Dotel (1-2) gave up a leadoff single in the eighth to Torii Hunter, who took third when Garret Anderson got the green light on a 3-0 pitch from Matt Thornton and singled to right field. Napoli’s delivered Hunter with a flyout to center, with Anderson alertly tagging up, and Robb Quinlan drove in the second run with a two-out single against Scott Linebrink.

Scot Shields (2-0) pitched one inning for the win and Francisco Rodriguez got three outs for his major league-leading 16th save.

The Angels stranded a runner in scoring position in four of the first five innings. Hunter grounded out with a man on third base to end the first, Guerrero hit into a double play to end the third, Casey Kotchman flied out to end the fourth, and Aybar grounded out to end the fifth.

“We left way too many runners in scoring position,” Scioscia said. “We stranded a lot of guys and were 1-for-12 with guys in scoring position. So it was a night we needed to pitch well, and we did. We scratched out a couple of runs late and held on.”

Chicago manager Ozzie Guillen flip-flopped Paul Konerko and Dye in his lineup, dropping the slumping Konerko to fifth and putting Dye in the cleanup spot for the fourth time this season following his four-hit performance on Monday night. But they didn’t get a runner past first base until Carlos Quentin doubled off the center fence with one out in the ninth.

“We haven’t been scoring too many runs lately, but our pitchers have been going out there and giving us a chance,” Dye said. “We just have to try and bear down a little bit more and get some runs across for them early.”

Carlos Zambrano switched to longer sleeves after three innings, not so much to combat the cold—as would be expected—but to cover a scab on his pitching arm.

Big Z was plenty ready for the elements on a 41-degree night in mid-May and showed his sense of humor Monday night after pitching and batting the Chicago Cubs to a 12-3 win over the San Diego Padres.

“It’s OK for me. I’m from Alaska,” Zambrano said, drawing laughs at his postgame news conference.

“No, it’s tough man, especially for me. I’m from South America, Venezuela. It is not this cold. Not even close,” he said.

“As a starting pitcher … don’t worry about the cold factor, just try to hit your spots and try to do the best you can to keep the inning quick.”

But the Cubs made sure the Padres couldn’t get off the field soon enough, scoring six runs in the fifth—started by Zambrano’s double—and adding five more in the sixth, when he added a single. They had 13 hits and made the most of nine walks issued by the Padres.

Pitching with an extra day’s rest after his start Sunday was scratched because of rainy conditions, Zambrano (6-1) allowed six hits and three runs in seven innings. And he was part of a batting order that was on base all night.

“I think we have a very good lineup, very balanced,” said Alfonso Soriano, who homered in the fifth and is 7-for-14 during the Cubs’ four-game winning streak. “Be more aggressive and, at the same time, selective at home plate. That’s what I try to do because I know when I swing at a strike, I know that I hit the ball very hard.”

The Cubs’ first eight batters reached in the fifth on six hits and two walks. Randy Wolf (2-3) didn’t retire a batter in the inning and in four-plus innings, he gave up eight hits, seven runs and five walks.

“In the fifth inning, there is really no way to candy coat it,” Wolf said. “I was bad. I didn’t make the pitches I needed to. They capitalized on it. You get behind and you don’t locate. Those are two recipes for something bad to happen.”

Jody Gerut’s first homer in nearly three years gave the Padres a 2-1 lead in the top of the fifth, but the Cubs quickly responded.

Zambrano drove a ball off the wall in right-center for a leadoff double and Soriano followed with a drive to left-center that just cleared the fence for his fourth homer, putting Chicago up 3-2.

Ryan Theriot walked, Derrek Lee singled and Aramis Ramirez had an RBI single before Kosuke Fukudome worked a walk to load the bases. Geovany Soto’s two-run single through the middle made it 6-2 and finished Wolf. Mark DeRosa then greeted reliever Sean Henn with an RBI single.

“He couldn’t make a pitch to get himself out of it,” Padres manager Bud Black said of Wolf.

In the sixth, the Cubs batted around again. They loaded the bases for the third time in the game on Soriano’s double and walks to Theriot and Ramirez before Fukudome drew his third walk of the game to force in a run.

It got worse for the Padres, who have the worst record in the majors at 14-25.

When DeRosa hit a grounder to third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff, he tried to race to the bag for a force, but Ramirez beat him there. Kouzmanoff then threw wildly to first for an error and three runs ended up scoring on the play as the Cubs went up 11-2. Reed Johnson later added an RBI single.

Fukudome’s three walks were a big part of the Cubs’ offense.

“The guy knows how to play baseball,” Zambrano said. “He came to the U.S. ready to play. One thing I see in Fukudome is he can handle it with all the media and all the fans.”

Lee’s double into the right-field corner scored Theriot, who singled, in the first to put the Cubs ahead 1-0. Tadahito Iguchi hit an RBI single in the third to tie it.

Daryle Ward was so sure he would play in the majors that he practiced his signature as a kid. He may get a few autograph requests after his latest big hit.

Ward delivered a pinch-hit, two-run double in the eighth inning, and the Chicago Cubs rallied again to beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 6-4 Sunday after the anticipated showdown between Carlos Zambrano and Randy Johnson got wiped out.

“I love the game of baseball,” Ward said. “It’s something I knew that I was going to do when I was about 3 years old.”

Carlos Marmol (1-0) struck out two in a perfect eighth and Kerry Wood pitched the ninth to earn his seventh save in 10 chances and finish off Chicago’s three-game sweep of the NL West leaders.

Heavy rain and temperatures in the mid-40s delayed the start of the game by 58 minutes, and Zambrano and Johnson were spectators when it finally began. By the time the game ended, the Cubs had used another late rally to beat Arizona, the team that swept them in the playoffs last year.

Reed Johnson tied it at 4 with a two-run homer off Juan Cruz with one out in the seventh after Mike Fontenot walked. Cruz then walked Ryan Theriot before Tony Pena (0-1) got Derrek Lee to hit into a double play, but the Cubs struck again in the eighth.

Pena intentionally walked pinch-hitter Alfonso Soriano to load the bases with one out and set the stage for Ward, who drove the ball to right-center to make it 6-4.

“Well, I’m not going to let Soriano beat us right there,” Arizona manager Bob Melvin said. “We’ve got to have a chance for a double-play ball and we’ve got (Ward) hitting (.174) up there. That’s really not that tough of a decision.”

Ward also tied it with a pinch-hit RBI single in Chicago’s 7-2 victory over Arizona on Saturday.

Most days, Ward follows a heavy regimen of stretches and massages in case he gets called.

“Sometimes, you’re a little bit lazy and say, ‘I don’t want to do it,”’ said Ward, third among active players with 74 pinch hits. “But you have to. I feel like I’m making a good example for some of the younger guys that are playing on the bench. They do some of the same things I do, and it’s been working for all of us.”

It’s a lot of effort for about a minute of activity.

“Was it even a minute?” he asked on Sunday.

No one was sure, exactly. They just knew his timing was perfect, as was Reed Johnson’s.

Stuck in a 4-for-34 slump over the previous 11 games, he drove his first homer through a driving wind about halfway up the bleachers.

“The last week or so, we really haven’t been playing that well so I think this was a good confidence boost,” said Johnson, signed to a one-year deal in late March after Toronto released him.

Arizona’s Edgar Gonzalez was in line to get the win until Johnson went deep.

Recently booted from the rotation, Gonzalez allowed two runs and five hits before being lifted for a pinch hitter in the sixth. One of those hits was a solo homer by Lee that gave Chicago a 2-1 lead in the third.

Cubs starter Sean Gallagher carried the lead into the fifth but couldn’t make it out of the inning. Reliever Chad Fox wasn’t much help, either, walking in two runs that inning.

Gallagher allowed four runs and five hits over 4 1-3 innings in his first major league start and likely will get another one against Pittsburgh this week. The 22-year-old right-hander had made two appearances this season after posting an 8.59 ERA in eight relief outings while splitting time between the majors and minors last year.

If the Cubs caught a break by missing Randy Johnson, who’s 12-0 against them, it was tough to tell.

Lee’s homer aside, they did little against Gonzalez.

“He did a pretty good job of keeping the ball down and got a lot of groundballs,” Arizona catcher Miguel Montero said. “He got ahead in the count, which I thought was a big key for him.”

The weather was miserable Monday, and the White Sox’s performance was just as dreary as they left U.S. Cellular Field with a 3-3 game against Baltimore that was suspended after 11 innings because of rain but should have been decided sooner.

“We stunk,” manager Ozzie Guillen said after the Sox stranded 14 baserunners. “I’m tired to see the effort like that.”

The Sox are 5-for-35 with runners in scoring position in their last four games after Monday’s 1-for-11 performance.

The game will be resumed at a later date. The Orioles have an off day June 23 in between a three-game set at Milwaukee and a three-game series at Wrigley Field against the Cubs. Or it could be finished when the Sox visit Baltimore for a three-game series Aug. 25-27.

Guillen was more irked by the shortcomings that occurred before and after closer Bobby Jenks blew his second save of the season in the ninth against Baltimore.

Nick Swisher fouled two bunt attempts before grounding into a double play in the eighth, and Brian Anderson failed to execute a squeeze bunt on a 2-1 count that resulted in Carlos Quentin getting caught in a rundown for the second out of the 10th.

“I got to get the job done,” Anderson said. “No excuses.”

And after Anderson drew his second walk to load the bases in the fourth, Alexei Ramirez grounded into an inning-ending force play on the next pitch.

“This is the big leagues,” Guillen said. “You should know what you’re doing.”

Several Sox players accepted responsibility.

“I stunk,” said A.J. Pierzynski, who stranded six runners. “If I get one hit, we win this game.”

All the individual statistics will count. That provided some consolation for starting pitcher Javier Vazquez, Quentin and Juan Uribe.

Vazquez left after eight innings and 100 pitches with a 2-1 lead. Guillen stood by his decision to pull him in favor of Jenks, who has five of his 14 blown saves against the Orioles.

“I have one of the best closers in the game for the past three years,” Guillen said. “That’s his job. He didn’t do what he always does.”

Quentin extended his hitting streak to eight games (12-for-26) and hit his sixth homer in the sixth.

Uribe came through with a game-tying homer in the 11th off George Sherrill, who had converted 11 straight save chances dating to last season with Seattle.

Uribe’s homer offset Ramon Hernandez’s homer in the top of the 11th off Scott Linebrink.

The start of the game was delayed 2 hours 6 minutes because of rain and marked the third delay in five days. That wore on Guillen, whose Sox embark on a six-game trip to Minnesota and Toronto with the security of playing indoors.

Nationals manager Manny Acta sure expects a lot from 23-year-old rookie John Lannan.

Consider Lannan had just thrown seven shutout innings in Washington’s 2-0 win over the Chicago Cubs on Suday. What did Acta say? “I’ve seen him better.”

Lannan (2-2) pitched four-hit ball in matching a career high for innings and extending his scoreless innings streak to 19. He lowered his ERA to 2.64 as the Nationals bounced back from a 7-0 loss to the Cubs Saturday. The left-hander struck out three, walked four and didn’t allow a hit until Ronny Cedeno singled to start the fifth.

“I’ve seen him better, but he showed me a lot today by being able to make pitches when he had to,” Acta said. “He had the ability to make good pitches and not allow any runs. That shows a lot for a kid that age.”

The left-hander was making just his 11th career start and had to work out of some tough situations, especially when Chicago threatened in the fifth and sixth innings. But Lannan kept his poise and escaped trouble.

I’ve been taught (that) instead of going hard, to take a step back and really make quality pitches and not try to overpower somebody,” Lannan said. “You’ve got to forget what happened in the past. You’ve got to work hard on what you’ve got going on right now.”

Lannan also credited catcher Wil Nieves for helping him.

Nieves was behind the plate for Lannan’s three most recent starts, including seven shutout innings against the Braves on April 22.

“It just seems like I’ve been catching him for a long time,” Nieves said. “He just seems like he knows what he’s doing out there, and he’s confident.”

Luis Ayala and Jon Rauch each pitch a hitless inning to complete the shutout. Rauch finished for his fourth save.

Lilly (1-4), making his 200th start, gave up two runs on four hits in six innings, with most of his trouble coming in the second inning when Wily Mo Pena and Nieves had back-to-back RBI singles. Washington got only one hit the rest of the game.

Nick Johnson started the second-inning rally with a leadoff single. Lastings Milledge moved Johnson to second with a sacrifice, and Pena brought him in two batters later with a two-out single to left.

Pena went to second on the throw home and scored on Nieves’ single.

Chicago missed scoring chances in the fifth and sixth. The Cubs loaded the bases with one out in the fifth, but Ryan Theriot grounded into a double play.

They put runners at second and third with one out in the sixth, but Lannan then got Mark DeRosa and Cedeno to ground out. The Cubs put runners on in seven of the nine innings and stranded eight.

“We didn’t score many runs,” Chicago manager Lou Piniella said. “When you don’t score many runs, it really increases the other team’s chances of winning— and that’s exactly what happened here.”

Joe Crede’s cool approach helped the Chicago White Sox end a long night with a victory and hand New York Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain his first major league defeat.

Crede lined an RBI single to center to score Carlos Quentin in the bottom of the ninth as Chicago beat New York 7-6 and avoided a three-game sweep.

“I think the biggest thing is to be able to control your emotions out there. The crowd is getting into it, especially when there is a guy on base in scoring position, and you have a chance for the base hit to win it,” Crede said after his hit set off a wild celebration at U.S. Cellular Field.

“You just go up there and try not to do too much and you know I’ve faced Chamberlain only twice so far, once being yesterday, and you kind of go through in the back of your head what kind of pitches he has and what they do,” Crede added. “You try to figure out what you need to do to try to go out there and just get a base hit.”

And Crede, who’s earned a reputation for getting clutch hits during his career, got a 1-2 pitch from the hard-throwing 22-year-old right-hander and delivered.

Chamberlain had given up just three earned runs in 32 innings over 26 regular-season appearances since being called up last year. He gave up one earned run in 19 outings in 2007.

“I’m not perfect every night,” said Chamberlain, who was the subject of much attention this week when team co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner said he should be starting instead of relieving. “I give up hits and that’s the way it’s going to be. I let my team down.”

Quentin doubled with one out off Chamberlain (1-1) and Crede lined a single to left-center to score him.

“He’ll be fine. He’ll bounce back. He’s given up a run before in his life,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said of Chamberlain.

Crede, who’s made a strong comeback after back surgery last season, has already hit two grand slams this season. He’s the guy the White Sox like to see when they need a big hit.

“We like our chances with Joe up. He’s done it all year,” White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski said. “He’s done it his whole career. He was the right guy in the right spot.”

Bobby Jenks (1-0) got pinch-hitter Jorge Posada to ground into an inning-ending double play with two runners on in the top of the ninth to get the win in a game twice delayed by rain.

Trailing 6-3, the Yankees tied it when Melky Cabrera hit a two-out, two-run homer off Gavin Floyd in the sixth, and Morgan Ensberg delivered a two-out RBI single off Scott Linebrink in the seventh.

Ensberg started a third straight game in place of injured Yankees star Alex Rodrigez, who rejoined the team Thursday but again didn’t play because of a strained right quadriceps. Rodriguez had been in Miami where his wife gave birth to their second child.

Floyd worked before and after a 51-minute rain delay in the third inning, allowing five hits and five runs in six innings.

Yankees starter Phil Hughes is still looking for his first win after five starts. New York took a 3-0 lead in the top of the third before the delay but decided not to bring back Hughes, their promising 21-year-old right-hander. Hughes allowed just one hit in his brief two-inning stint while throwing 23 pitches.

The White Sox scored five in the fourth off reliever Ross Ohlendorf. Orlando Cabrera reached on an infield single, Jim Thome walked, Paul Konerko had an RBI single, Jermaine Dye delivered a run-scoring single that skipped past Ensberg at third and Pierzynski added an RBI double over Bobby Abreu’s head in right.

Quentin then grounded to Ensberg, whose throw to the plate couldn’t get the sliding Dye as Chicago went up 4-3. Alexei Ramirez hit a ball down the right-field line that Abreu couldn’t reach and the RBI double made it 5-3.

Facing LaTroy Hawkins in the fifth, Thome hit his 513th homer and moved into sole possession of 19th place on the career list, breaking a tie with Ernie Banks and Eddie Mathews. It gave Chicago a 6-3 lead.

Floyd had struggled with his control in the third, giving up a hit to Jason Giambi—who was batting .135—and walking Cabrera and Johnny Damon to load the bases. Giambi made a great slide around Pierzynski beating a strong throw from Dye, who caught Derek Jeter’s line drive in right field.

Abreu, who had a go-ahead grand slam in Tuesday night’s series opener, then doubled off the top of the left-field fence to drive in two, giving him 1,000 career RBIs.

In the sixth, Floyd gave up a two-out double to Giambi before Cabrera hit his fourth homer to cut Chicago’s lead to 6-5.

The lovable losers’ 10,000th win was a memorable one, filled with blown leads, big hits, great catches and, lastly, high-fives all around.

The Chicago Cubs beat the Colorado Rockies 7-6 on Ryan Theriot’s RBI single off Kip Wells with two outs in the 10th inning Wednesday night for their sixth straight win.

Chicago hasn’t won a World Series in a century, and truly significant wins in that time have been rare, but the current Cubs had fun being a part of this one.

“It was a tough first 10,000 wins,” Theriot said with a chuckle. “I hope the next 10,000 are easier.”

“Really, I didn’t remember a lot about the first 9,000,” cracked Kerry Wood, who got what Theriot termed “a cool benchmark” win as the Cubs improved to 15-6 for just the fourth time in the last 100 years.

Both teams blew ninth-inning leads with their closers, but it was the Rockies who ended up losing their fourth straight game when leading after seven innings.

Theriot’s single to right field scored pinch-runner Mike Fontenot from second base as the Cubs joined the Giants as the only franchises in major league history to reach 10,000 wins.

Carlos Marmol pitched a perfect the 10th for his second save in as many chances.

Aramis Ramirez hit a two-run homer off struggling Colorado closer Manny Corpas with one out in the ninth to put the Cubs ahead 6-5, but Ryan Spilborghs tripled home the tying run off Wood with two outs in the bottom half.

Wood (2-0) struck out Clint Barmes to strand the winning run at third, then picked up the win when the Cubs rallied off Wells (1-1).

“We’ve been picking each other up all year,” Wood said. “That’s why we are in the position we’re in. It’s somebody different every night. … I don’t think we could predict the way we were going to be swinging the bats right now. I don’t think we have more than one guy in the lineup hitting under .300.”

And that’s Ramirez, who went 2-for-5 to raise his average to .287.

Corpas blew his second straight save and fourth in eight chances just hours after his manager gave him a vote of confidence. Last year, he converted 19-of-20 saves, then signed a big contract over the winter.

Clint Hurdle might be pondering a switch now, but he wasn’t ready to reveal anything just yet.

“I’ll talk to the player first,” he said. “I need to think things through, talk to the people I need to talk to, have a conversation, and when we make a decision we’ll let you guys know right away.”

The Rockies have a proven alternative in $5 million set-up man Brian Fuentes, who lost his closer job to Corpas last summer when he blew four straight saves just after he was voted to his third straight All-Star Game.

Asked about the possibility of losing his job, Corpas said it’s up to the manager, that he’s just in a funk and has no faith in his slider, which is what he left up and over the plate to Ramirez when he was trying to get him to chase a pitch off the plate.

Before the game, Hurdle was adamant he wasn’t going to juggle his bullpen like he did his infield a night earlier, when slumping shortstop Troy Tulowitzki didn’t start.

Tulowitzki returned to the lineup Wednesday night but was moved from second in the batting order to seventh. He broke out of a 1-for-19 slump with a three-run homer that capped a five-run rally and erased Chicago’s 3-0 lead in the sixth.

“I definitely took some better swings tonight. We came out on the losing end, that’s the main thing. It’s still bothersome,” Tulowitzki said.

Barmes homered off starter Rich Hill leading off the sixth, and Michael Wuertz came in after Hill walked the next batter. Matt Holliday and Garrett Atkins hit back-to-back singles off Wuertz, making it 3-2.

One out later, Jon Lieber came in to face Tulowitzki. With the crowd chanting “Tulo!” the slumping shortstop sent a 1-1 slider over the left-field wall for his first homer of the season.

The Cubs pulled to 5-4 in the seventh when Taylor Buchholz surrendered an RBI single to Ramirez.

The Cubs took a 3-0 lead on Mark DeRosa’s sacrifice fly, Geovany Soto’s solo homer and Ramirez’s RBI double, all off Franklin Morales, who allowed three earned runs on eight hits in six innings.

Hill surrendered two earned runs on three hits in five innings.

“It’s obviously tough any time you lose leads late,” Tulowitzki said. “It makes it extra tough. I remember we went through a stretch last year where we did the same kind of thing and ended up all right. At least we know we can still be OK.”

A day after Ronny Cedeno told reporters the Chicago Cubs are “thinking about the World Series,” he recanted.

“I’m going to take it back,” Cedeno said. “I go too fast.”

Cedeno swung as if he wants to help the Cubs get there, hitting a grand slam and driving in five runs in surging Chicago’s 8-1 win over the New York Mets on Tuesday for its 13th victory in 16 games.

Ted Lilly won for the first time in five starts, helping the Cubs to their best start over 20 games since the days of Don Kessinger and Rick Reuschel.

The Cubs, who a season ago started 7-13, had 14 hits and improved to 14-6, their best record at this point since 1975.

Cedeno, who almost was cut at the end of spring training, has started the past two games with Ryan Theriot, the usual shortstop, out because of back pain.

Cedeno drove in Chicago’s first run in a three-run fourth, then hit his first career grand slam in the eighth against Jorge Sosa for a 7-1 lead. Cedeno, who has 10 RBIs in his past four games, also had a key hit in Monday night’s win — which led to the giddy talk of a World Series, something the Cubs have not won in 100 years.