"It was the bunt heard around Wrigleyville, and it came from the most unlikely of Cubs.

With two men on and no outs in the fourth inning of Wednesday night's 6-2 victory over the A's, Alfonso Soriano laid down his first sacrifice bunt since June 25, 2006 at Baltimore, when he played for Washington.

"That was one of his sneak attacks," manager Lou Piniella said.

The crowd of 36,244 gave Soriano a nice ovation, and why not? It's such a rare thing that there have been three perfect games in the majors since Soriano's last sacrifice, and there would have been four if not for an umpire's bad call.

"Everybody was surprised," he said. "Everybody was happy. … I think they know baseball more than we thought."

With the Cubs ahead 2-1, Derrek Lee and Xavier Nady led off the fourth with singles. Soriano then moved them over to second and third and Geovany Soto was walked intentionally. Starlin Castro brought home Lee with the third run on a sacrifice fly before starter Ryan Dempster lined out.

Soriano was seemingly happier over his sacrifice than his 300th career home run last week."