Cubs Break .500 With 2-1 Win Over Dodgers
7th Inning Rally and Great Pitching Lead the Way
May 29, 2009
The Cubs met the Dodgers at Wrigley Field earlier today for the start of a three game series as Ted Lilly lead his struggling team through a pitchers’ duel against Chad Billingsley attempting to bring the Cubs closer to third place.
As Chicago fans know the season has been slow going and with a three game series against the best team in baseball it only looked like it was going to get worse. The Cubs have been working hard but not getting the results they'd been looking for only winning three of their last ten games.
Cubs are not That far Behind
Despite all of this the Cubs and Chicago fans have reason to believe that they can still climb out of fourth place and be in first before the end of next month as they are only 4.0 games behind the NL Central leading St. Louis Cardinals and 2.5 games behind third place Cincinnati Reds. All this being said it is no small wonder that the league leading Dodgers were unable to pound the home team into the ground without mercy. Rather, they had to fight for every hit, only gaining five in nine innings.
Starter Ted Lilly pitched skillfully through six innings keeping the Dodgers from scoring a single run just four days after being ejected from a game he had not even played in. Despite Lilly's strong performance he could not stop Los Angeles' Matt Kemp from breaking the silence of the evening with a solo HR (4) in the top of the seventh. In response the Cubs rallied back as Koyie Hill hit his first HR of the season tying the game at one. Following this Kosuke Fukudome batted in pinch hitter Jake Fox for the lead.
The pitchers’ duel remained in the eighth and ninth innings as the Dodgers brought in Brent Leach. Leach successfully deterred the Cubs from continuing the seventh inning batting spree, holding them to a scoreless inning. The Cubs' coaching staff took no chances either as they set up Kevin Gregg to close with Carlos Marmol in the eighth.
Gregg Gets the Save
Gregg shut down the Dodgers for the save (8) bringing the Cubs one game over .500 and giving their rivals something to think about as they head into game two of their three game series tomorrow at 4:10 EST where Chicago's Ryan Dempster will be facing Los Angeles' Eric Stults as the Dodgers fight to maintain their championship approaching record and the the Cubs fight their way to the top.
