CHICAGO -- At some point during Ted Lilly's 38-pitch second inning, Cubs manager Lou Piniella turned to pitching coach Larry Rothschild.

"I told Larry, 'Boy, we'll be fortunate if we get six out of him,'" Piniella said.

They got 6 1/3. Piniella and Rothschild will take it, and so will the Cubs. Lilly, the rotation's resident stopper, worked through early trouble to put himself in a position to notch a 5-1 victory against the Pirates on Saturday afternoon. The bats, paced by Reed Johnson's three hits, came up with several ways to manufacture runs just one day after getting shut out at home for the first time this season.

Lilly got the team back on track following Friday's loss, regaining some of the momentum created by a four-game sweep at Milwaukee earlier this week. He has a penchant for doing that.

"Over the past two years, after losing a ballgame, this guy does as good a job as anybody we have here in putting a stop to that losing streak," Piniella said.

Lilly (11-6) gave up one run and worked around six hits, surrendering three walks and striking out five. He didn't give up a home run for the first time since June 30. Relievers Chad Gaudin, Bob Howry and Carlos Marmol finished up.

As nice as it feels to win, Lilly knows he got away with some pitches, especially since the wind was blowing in.

"I still feel like I put myself in a lot of bad situations," Lilly said. "Fortunately, I was able to get out of it. I think you can only get away with that so many times. I've done that quite a bit throughout the course of the year and found a way out of it, and there have been some times I've had some big innings and put us behind."

Some of those big innings came in April, when Lilly lost four times. He is 10-2 since the beginning of May.

"Not too shabby," Piniella said.

The same could be said of Lilly's performance against the Pirates. Lilly only gave up one run in the taxing second, and that came on a bases-loaded grounder by opposing pitcher Paul Maholm (7-7) that bounced off Ryan Theriot's hand.

After that, Lilly faced no more than four batters in any one inning. Credit catcher Geovany Soto for helping to settle his starter down.

"He knew that I was scuffling with my curveball," Lilly said. "He helped me have a little more confidence and made me throw my changeup a little bit more and made me use my slider. Sometimes I get stubborn out there, and there will be times when something's not working and I want to force it to work. He was good with me today in that regard."

"Early in the game, we [weren't] really [on] the same page," Soto said. "After the fourth [and] fifth inning rolled around, I think we stepped it up a little bit. We were doing a better job being on the same page, getting ground balls and getting first-pitch outs. He got rolling after that."

The Cubs scored with small ball, and as it so often does, that meant Johnson had a big day.

The hard-nosed center fielder went 3-for-4 with a bunt single, a double, a stolen base and two runs scored. Every Cubs position starter reached base, but nobody reached the seats.

"We can't rely on the home run ball solely," Piniella said. "I don't think we're a home run-hitting ballclub, myself."

The team currently ranks fifth in the league with 125 home runs.

The bottom of the order produced two runs in both the second and fourth innings. Soto, batting seventh, and Cedeno, batting eighth, drove in the first four runs. Leadoff man Alfonso Soriano doubled to lead off the fifth and scored on Derrek Lee's sacrifice fly.

That helped Lilly to nip the losing after a single defeat.

"It's important to stop that kind of momentum when we get into a little rut," Piniella said. "But it's a lot easier when the guys go out there and put five runs on the board right away and put pressure on their pitcher all day."