Hey San Diego, what do you say?

The first game of the three-game series in San Diego - and of the two games I bought tickets for while we're out here - was a bit rocky at times, but the Cubs got the win. Zambrano looked better at the plate than on the mound - he needed 95 pitches to go five innings and threw just 51 strikes, walking four and striking out two, although after allowing three runs in a very shaky first inning, he settled down enough to hold the Padres to just those three runs over his five innings of work. At the plate he went 3-for-3 with a triple that tied the game in the fourth, as the Cubs scored a run in the second, two in the fourth, one in the fifth, two in the sixth, and another in the seventh to lead 7-3 going into the ninth. Jon Lieber, Neal Cotts, Michael Wuertz and Carlos Marmol had held the Padres scoreless up to that point (although not much thanks to Wuertz, who went just a third of an inning and left after walking two guys in the eighth, leaving Marmol to get the next two outs). Marmol struggled in the ninth, though, eventually giving up a three-run homer to Adrian Gonzalez that landed two rows down from us and one section over. Mercifully, Wood came in to save it, though the final out came on a Michael Barrett fly to deep left that was less than ten feet from tying the game. 7-6, but it was a win.

The ballpark was extremely blue and very loudly pro-Cubs, especially once they took the lead and then seemed in no danger of relinquishing it. In our section alone, nearly the entire front row - we were in the fourth row in the right field boxes, a pretty great view of the action on the field - was Cubs fans, including a guy who kept turning around and waving his arms to mock the Padres fans whenever Jim Edmonds did something good (and he had two RBI doubles), and the couple with a young kid to my left were expatriate Chicagoans. We did have a few very loud Padres fans right behind us, including a guy who rather bizarrely seemed to have signs for every guy on the team (he held up a sign reading "Scott Hairston" when Hairston pinch-hit, and another reading "Mac Attack" for Paul McAnulty, starting in left tonight but usually a reserve [he has just 169 at-bats in four years with the team]) and who chattered pretty much constantly at every Padres hitter and at any Cubs player who did anything negative. (In the first few innings, another guy near him consistently yelled "He's everywhere!" every other time Zambrano threw a ball. Needless to say, Zambrano lasted longer than the opposing starter, Cha-Seung Baek, and managed to get the win, although that should probably tell you something about the win as a stat.)

Don't look now, by the way, but thanks to this eight-game winning streak, the Cubs continue to have the best record in baseball, they've opened up a 3.5-game lead on the Cardinals (tied with Arizona, despite their recent slump, and the Angels for the biggest division lead in baseball) and lead by seven over Milwaukee and Houston. I'm not going crazy about this yet because five of the games in the current win streak have been against Colorado and San Diego, presently two of the worst teams in baseball, and it's not like the Cubs really dominated either of them. (Let's not forget that the series against Colorado featured a game that required the Cubs overcoming a 1% chance of victory in the sixth inning.)

This was my first Cubs road game since July 4, 1997; it was a win, like that one, taking me over .500 all-time (2-1). That's also seven consecutive Cubs wins in games I attend; hopefully this can continue on Wednesday. It would be too annoying if the streak had to end against the last team I saw the Cubs lose to (in May of 2001).