The Cubs got lucky on Saturday.

Going in to the ninth inning, the Cubs had a 4-0 lead over Roy Oswalt and the Houston Astros.  In his second Major League start, Randy Wells pitched six strong (albeit adventurous) innings and had shut-out the Astros to that point.  Micah Hoffpauir led the way offensively with a 2-run home run.  Then closer Kevin Gregg came in to pitch the ninth inning and the bottom fell out.

Lance Berkman was the first batter up in the top of the ninth and quickly hit a home run off of Gregg.  Not to be out done, Carlos Lee then stepped to the plate and hit another gopher ball off of Gregg.  The Cubs closer then gave up back-to-back singles to Miguel Tejada and Hunter Pence, and Manager Lou Piniella had seen enough.   Gregg was done for the day. 

Both runners eventually scored off of Aaron Heilman, who gave up a walk and a single, to tie the game at 4-4.  Piniella then turned to Sean Marshall to get the Cubs out of the inning. 

Bobby Scales started off the bottom of the ninth with a walk off former Cub LaTroy Hawkins.  Aaron Miles bunted Scales over to second and then Alfonso Soriano singled in to right to bring Scales home for the Cubs victory.

I know the bullpen is going to have an off day now and then, but it really bothers me to see the team’s closer have a meltdown like this.  In all fairness, Gregg has converted six-out-of-seven save opportunities, which is what he gets paid for.  But with a record of 0-1 and an ERA of 6.06 after 18 appearances and 16.1 innings pitched, I expected more.  Hopefully this bad outing will be a wake-up call for Gregg.