The right-hander owned the longest streak to start a season without a decision, but that pattern came to a screeching halt on Wednesday when the Astros topped the Cubs, 5-3.

Chacon hadn't recorded a decision in nine starts, but after holding the Cubs to three runs over seven frames, he won. Finally.

"Thank God," Chacon whispered, grinning.

"I was telling somebody that it feels like I won my first game ever -- that's how long it's been," he added. "I'm pretty happy, but more importantly, we won the series against a first-place team and we have some momentum heading into this weekend."

At last, Chacon can shed the "N.D." nickname hoisted on him by several snickering teammates. N.D., as in, no-decision.

"It is gone," Chacon said with a smile. "It was a crazy streak. I didn't think I'd go almost two months."

Although Chacon had little to show for it, he maintained a respectable 4.11 ERA while producing quality starts seven times. His ERA is the lowest of all Astros starting pitchers, and the team has won five of his last seven outings.

"He deserves [the win]," Cooper said. "He actually deserved some of the other ones, especially early on."

A healthy crowd of 33,251 watched Chacon yield all three Cubs runs in the first frame. He gave up a two-run homer to Derrek Lee and a run-scoring double to Geovany Soto, but Chacon was dominant through his next six innings, allowing only two hits while striking out five.

"The last two ballgames, he struggled a little bit with command, but tonight, I thought after the first inning, you can't pitch any better than that," Cooper said. "He was very, very good. He pitches like that, [and] we're going to be tough to beat."

"He settled down after the first inning and just shut us down," the Cubs' Lee said. "He was leaving the ball up in the first inning, and then he started getting the slider down and getting his fastball in the corners, and we just couldn't get anything going."

As has been the case for much of the season, Chacon was buoyed by plenty of support from the Houston lineup and defense. Carlos Lee hit a three-run homer off Sean Gallagher as part of a four-run third inning, and he also made a spectacular leaping grab of a Jim Edmonds fly ball to end the fourth.

First, the homer.

"I was 0-2, [and I wanted to] just put the ball in play to see what happens," Lee said. "I got lucky. He threw a slider right down the middle, up. That's a pitch you can't miss."

Cubs skipper Lou Piniella expressed a similar sentiment.

"The breaking ball to Lee with two strikes -- you have to bounce that ball or try to make him chase a bad pitch," Piniella said. "He hung it up there on a platter. [Lee] makes a $100 million doing those sort of things."

Cooper called the home-run swing "vintage Carlos from a year ago." Cooper commended his left fielder for putting up respectable numbers, despite still struggling to find his groove.

"Two strikes, a lot of times, he shortens up and puts the bat on the ball," Cooper said. "That's a pretty short swing. I told him that. It's a short swing, that's what you've got to do when you get two strikes. For a guy that's struggled all year -- he hasn't had his swing all year -- he still has 10 home runs and something like 35 RBIs, which a lot of guys would die to have."

The Astros took two of three from the division-leading Cubs, who beat them twice during an early season series at Wrigley Field. Although it's early, the Astros clearly have more confidence now than they did through a 13-16 April that left many wondering if this new team was going to be a flop.

"We got big hits in this series," Cooper said. "I know we pitched a lot better than we pitched in Chicago. We were still trying to figure out who we're going to be, and who we are and all of that. I thought this last month or so we found out exactly who we are, and we're playing like that. It's a totally different team than they faced early on."

Added Chacon: "One message that the Cubs might get out of it is, 'We're here. We're here to compete. We're going to battle. It's not the team it was last year. Basically, it's going to be a tough team to beat the whole year.'"