Soto blast in 8th carries Cubs past Houston, caps comeback

Geovany Soto showed his toughness and power, all in one day.Soto withstood a collision at the plate to prevent a run from scoring, then hit a tiebreaking homer in the eighth inning to lift the Cubs over the Houston Astros 5-4 on Monday.Soto slammed a two-out solo shot off reliever Wilton Lopez (5-2) to snap a 4-all tie and cap a comeback. Four innings earlier, he was flattened at the plate by a charging Michael Bourn but held onto the ball and made the tag.Soto, hitting .284 with 17 home runs, said he wasn’t necessarily thinking about hitting a home run when he stepped into the box in the eighth at windy Wrigley Field.Marlon Byrd hit a two-run homer and Chicago got a useful outing from starting pitcher Casey Coleman, who lasted six innings. Coleman gave up eight hits and four runs — all in the second. Cubs reliever Andrew Cashner (2-5) pitched a perfect eighth for the win. Carlos Marmol handled the ninth and earned his career-high 28th save.Houston starter Wandy Rodriguez went seven innings, allowing four runs and eight hits while striking out six.The Cubs trailed 4-0 after 1½ innings but got three runs back in the third on Blake DeWitt’s RBI single and a two-run homer by Byrd. They tied it in the fifth when Jeff Baker lined a double down the left-field line to score Darwin Barney, who singled.The Astros batted around in the second, starting with Chris Johnson’s leadoff homer. He lined Coleman’s 1-1 pitch deep into the left-field bleachers for his seventh of the season.Matt Downs walked, Jason Castro singled and the runners advanced to second and third following an error by Cubs outfielder Alfonso Soriano. Downs scored on a wild pitch.Back-to-back singles from Jeff Keppinger and Hunter Pence brought home Castro and Bourn, who reached when he was hit by a pitch.The Cubs scored three in the third, with the big blow coming on Byrd’s two-out homer that also scored DeWitt. It was his first home run since Aug. 11 and his 12th overall.The victory was the Cubs’ fourth in five games. The Astros, meanwhile, came in with five wins in their last six games and still have an 8-5 edge over the Cubs in the season series.

NOTES—A strained right quadriceps kept Cubs 3B Aramis Ramirez out of the lineup. “They’re going to look at him later today. It’s a day-to-day type of thing,” Quade said. … Also out was rookie SS Starlin Castro, benched by Quade after he made a mistake in the seventh inning of Sunday’s 18-5 loss to the Mets. Castro lost track of the number of outs and failed to run out a grounder that ended up a double play.