Craig Biggio and Lance Berkman each hit first-inning home runs off Carlos Zambrano, and Morgan Ensberg drove in two runs to power the Houston Astros to a 8-3 victory over the Cubs.

"A couple balls caught too much of the plate early," Cubs manager Dusty Baker said of the early homers. "We were still in the ballgame, and we ended up giving away like four runs on defense. You can't give away runs in the big leagues. We didn't play very good defense today."

The Astros needed the win. They started the day with a one-game lead in the National League Wild Card race. With the loss, the Cubs were mathematically eliminated in the Wild Card competition.

Baker denied the Cubs were suffering from some kind of end of the season funk. It was a combination of bad defense, brain cramps, and errant pitches.

"It's just not playing good defense," Baker said. "They're playing hard. Playing hard isn't good enough. You have to play to win and play to win every day, and that's what we're here for."

"The effort is there," Nomar Garciaparra said of the Cubs. "The effort is always there. Everyone is a professional. If you played against us on a Sunday in a park with our families, you're going to see effort there. That's the nature of us. None of these guys would be here in the big leagues if they didn't have that attitude every day."

Garciaparra hit a two-run homer, his eighth, in the sixth for the Cubs, but it wasn't enough to help Zambrano (14-6). The right-hander gave up six runs on nine hits and one walk over 6 1/3 innings. It was only his second loss at home in his final Wrigley Field start of 2005. He was not available for comment after the game.

The Astros jumped on Zambrano early. Biggio hit his 24th home run with one out in the first, and one out later, Berkman hit his 21st to make it 2-0.

Corey Patterson hit a sacrifice fly in the Chicago second against starter Ezequiel Astacio (3-6). But Houston added a run in the fifth on Ensberg's two-out RBI double. In the sixth, Jason Lane doubled and advanced on a wild pitch before scoring on Jose Vizcaino's suicide squeeze to make it 4-1.

With one on and one out in the Astros seventh, Patterson slipped on the warning track trying to catch Ensberg's ball, which resulted in an RBI triple. Rain then interrupted play for an hour and 28 minutes. Was the track wet?

"I fell at the last minute," Patterson said. "I didn't see it real good off the bat. It was raining out there and it was a tough play, but it dropped in."

"That ball in center field was tough to catch," Garciaparra said. "I didn't see where it was going. Things like that happen."

When play resumed, the Astros loaded the bases against Will Ohman on walks to Berkman and Lane. Vizcaino bounced an infield single to Garciaparra, who threw to first rather than step on third for the force.

"He was going to third, but the runner had beaten him because the ball was high," Baker said. "He decided to throw to first, but it was too late."

Ensberg scored and Berkman tallied on a wild pitch to make it 7-3.

Garciaparra now has played more games at third base (27) than at shortstop (25) this year for the Cubs. He had to make an instant judgement on the play.

"I couldn't get to the bag," he said. "I can't charge that ball. If I go for that, and it kicks, two runs score. It's a little different if the guy didn't have two strikes on him because the runner is taking off on the swing.

"When I fielded it, my first instinct was to go to third, but he was there and then, with a high chopper like that and a guy as fast as Vizcaino, I knew going to first initially I didn't have much of a chance -- but with him running on two strikes, he got a great jump. That's good base running on their part."

Cubs first baseman Derrek Lee went 0-for-4, and now is batting .339, which still leads the National League with seven games to go.

Lee has a job for next season. There are some players who need to show they deserve one, too.

"This is judgement time for who is going to be here and who's going to be playing next year, too," Baker said. "You're not only playing for now, but 2006 as well."