"After making a diving catch for the first out of Friday's 4-3 victory over the Phillies, Alfonso Soriano said he was "trying to be like Marlon Byrd."

But when he hit the grass hard with his face, Soriano said he had second thoughts.

"Now I don't want to be like him," he said with a grin.

Soriano's defense has improved over the last two months after manager Lou Piniella began lifting him for defensive purposes at the end of games. He won't win any Gold Glove awards in left field, but he's not hurting the team as he did at the beginning of the season.

"He's trying to be like me on defense, and I'm trying to be like him on offense," Byrd said. "We're doing the trade-off. He has been working hard every single day and he's getting great jumps on the ball, as you can see. When you're diving for balls forward, you're usually getting good jumps on balls.

Marmol time: Carlos Marmol struck out Jayson Werth, Ryan Howard and Ben Francisco in a perfect ninth, giving him 81 strikeouts in only 42 2/3 innings.

The Cubs record for a reliever is Bruce Sutter's 129 in 1977. It took Sutter 107 2/3 innings to set the mark."