Last year Carlos Zambrano faded down the stretch. His fastball straightened out and he tried to compensate by throwing it even harder, which just made it go straighter. A guy who’d helped carry the team deep into September was a shell of himself in October.

Fast forward to last night, in Pittsburgh. Oliver Perez was doing things to the Cubs hitters’ that are illegal in most southern states. You wondered if the Cubs could get a hit, much less scratch across a run. So Carlos, just decided he wouldn’t allow any runs either.

Carlos’ workload hasn’t lessened, in fact, with injuries to The Franchise and Kerry Wood, and with Matt Clement completely checking out, it’s been Carlos and Greg Maddux who’ve done the heavy lifting in recent months. Last night it would be no different. Carlos toyed with the Pirates at times, no moment more so than when he followed a 96 mile per hour fastball on the outside corner with a 63 mile per hour floating curve ball to Jose Castillo that Castillo is still swinging at.

Sure, Carlos got some help from his friends. E-ramis Ramirez made three nice plays at third base, and Derrek Lee turned a nifty double play off a soft, broken bat liner. But for the most part, last night was all about The Lawnmower, our buddy El Toro, just being annoyed that the Pirates even thought they could score against him.

Unlike in past starts he didn’t try and grab every ground ball with his bare hand and he didn’t pull his hat down over his face and scream the diner monologue from Pulp Fiction into his glove. He just stayed cool like Fonzie and made all the pitches.

He made all the plays, too. He thwarted one Pirates rally by grabbing a Craig Wilson bunt and forcing the lead runner at third base. He even drew the bases loaded walk that drove in the only run of the game.

If Melinda Kankaredes had stopped by the scene of the victory last night, she’d have found Carlos’ fingerprints all over it.

She might also find some of Neifi Perez’s DNA at second base, as he did everything short of dry humping Jack Wilson to break up a ninth inning double play. Eww.

It was Carlos’ night, and he deserved it. It’s nice to have a guy on the mound who won’t back down from anything. No situation gets too sticky for Carlos to think he can get out of it. The Cubs have four guys like that in the rotation right now. Most teams have two if they’re lucky.

But watching that game you had to be nervous, but you also knew that the only way the Pirates would get to Carlos would be by earning it.

They got close. When he walked Jason Bay to load the based with one out in the eighth, Dusty came out and took Carlos out of the game. Carlos didn’t want to come out and you almost thought he’d try and handcuff himself to the pitching rubber. Kent Mercker came in. This is one of those rare moments when having lefty relievers who get righties out better than lefties actually pays off. Dusty didn’t care if Lloyd McClendon took down Daryle Ward in favor of the flowing locks of the strikeout-double play prone Craig A. Wilson. By the way, how come he’s just Craig Wilson know? Anyway, Mercker got ahead of Wilson and then threw Wilson the one pitch Craiggers never saw coming. A meaty, got-way-too-much of the plate 86 MPH meatball. Craig could only watch it go by for strike three.

That brough up eleven time All-Star Ty Wigginton with two outs. He slapped at a similar offering and sent it dangerously out to short right center. Visions of a bloop, three run double ran though the minds of every Cubs fan in North America. Then, a blur of blue swooped under the ball and caught it. For the second straight week, Sammy Sosa went horizontal on a line drive to kill off the Pirates. This wasn’t a Jim Edmonds-slow-down-to-make-Web-Gems flop. Sammy had one play. He had to get a great jump, he had to take the right angle and he had to time his dive perfectly. He was 0-4 at the plate, but three for three on this play. The inning ended, the threat was over and the Cubs had won their ninth game in 11 tries.

In the dugout you could see Carlos jumping for joy, Gary Matthews doing some sort of strange dance and the blood returning to Dusty’s head.

In the ninth, Mike Remlinger came in to douse this one in kerosene and see of he could find two rocks to bang together. But E-ramis thwarted the potential pyrotechnics by making a leaping grab of a would be leadoff double by Tike Redman. Then McClendon fell into the old lefty-righty trap and did the Cubs a favor by taking down Rob Mackowiak for Tippy Alvarez. Tippy, Tony, whatever. Tippy had no chance and flew harmlessly to Sammy. You would think a manager, especially one of a team so far under .500 it needs a snorkel, would say, “Hey, I’m not only going to leave Mackowiak in against Remlinger, I’m going to tell him to bat lefthanded to take away that change up.” I guess not.

Out west the Padres thumped the Dodgers whose season might just black out like Brad Penny’s weekly MRI. The Cubs are still only a half game behind the Giants, but they’re also now within a half game of the Dodgers. If the Dodgers were a boat, the band would be playing and Molly Brown would be hoisting her fat ass into a dingy.

There’s a good chance that when the NL Playoffs start on October 5 that three of last year’s NL tournament participants will be back for another dance, with just the Marlins left out.

Today, the Cubs will face former operatic subject Nelson Figueroa, who is getting the call over former Oakland Raider player and coach Art Shell. You might be tempted to worry that the Cubs will flop against Nelson like they did against another rag arm, David Weathers on Monday. But fear not. The worst thing that happened to Nelson was that Weathers didn’t get rocked. Lightning doesn’t strike twice.

So at 11:35 a.m. today, the Pirates come out to get their whuppin’. They’ve lost seven in a row to the Cubs. Eight is a nice number.

—-

Carlos pitched, he fielded and he hit. It didn’t hurt that the Nomar guy got on base three times, either.

It’s not the hop that’s the problem. It’s the next three or four steps. If those are done in haste everything’s OK.

Let me get this straight. The Cubs can lug a lifesize deer target with them on the road, but they can’t pack a board for Kerry to put between his mattress and box spring? They don’t sell plywood in Pissburgh?

Phil Rogers has a Carlos Zambrano chubby. Funny, just about a year ago he wasn’t so sure Carlos could handle the workload of being a starter. Hmm?

Get out the hankies, it’s time for an emotional retirement press conference for Scottie Pippen. During the presser he plans on waving an unregistered handgun, throwing a chair across the room, fathering another child out of wedlock and leaving with 1.8 questions left. I kid because I care, Scottie. Truth is, he’s a great player who will never get the credit he’s due because everybody thinks he was just Tonto to Michael Jordan’s Lone Ranger. He was actually more like Butch to MJ’s Sundance.

This flashback to draft day 1987 is awesome. Check out the losers who got drafted that year. Dennis Hopson was the third pick! Armon Gilliam was the Clips’ consolation for missing out on David Robinson. And who can ever forget watching Cadillac Anderson cry in the “green room” when nobody would draft him? Tremendous. Plus, it’s written by the greatest Seinfeld reference of all time, Bob Sakamoto.

By the way, you have to love the mock disbelief that Ken Norman and Dallas Comegys dropped in the first round. Oh, really? The NBA doesn’t love 6’5 power forwards who can’t shoot? I had no idea.

If you have X-box Live, chances are you can spend lots of quality time with P’nut Tillman (P’nut…there, ya happy?)

Mike Brown, The Franchise, Nomar and Gruddy need to do some sort of commercial together, don’t they?

Todd Zeile with Steve Rosenbloom. It never made any sense to me that the the ’95 Cubs didn’t resign Todd Zeile. Who played third base in 1996? Jose Hernandez, Leo Gomez, Tyler Houston and Dave Magadan. Nice. That Ed Lynch. He was a whiz, wasn’t he?

I don’t what I like more, laughing at Tom Zbikowski’s haircut or listening to Tony Roberts try and say his name.

Avani Patel tries to convince us that Irish sophomore running back Travis Taylor got a confidence boost by coming into the MSU game…and fumbling.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to get all over the Sox for saying bad things about Magglio Ordonez’s health. Hey, he has a bone marrow infection. It’s not like they made it up. He’s on the road to gimphood here.

Chris DeLuca says that the Cubs’ answer at shortstop is…Orlando Cabrera! Excuse me while I stick my head through my computer monitor. Would it be possible for Chris DeLuca to be any dumber? How does his body even remember to have his heart beat?

The Wizard of Roz with all kinds of nice things from the Twins about Andy MacPhail. Gee, thanks!

Shaq doesn’t want MJ to try another ill-fated comeback with the Heat. Shaq’s smart.

TJ Simers continues to follow the Dodgers march to the abyss.

John Kerry has lost his voice. If only that would become an epidemic for politicians…

American’s finest news source on a very efficient intervention.