Cubs 6-2 DeRosas: Randy Wells First Major League Win

Randy Wells made his 8th start of the season today. He couldn’t have pitched much better in the previous 7 and had yet to record a win. He was coming off his worst start 8 days ago in which he didn’t make it out of the 4th inning and allowed 4 earned runs. That was the only start in which Wells allowed more than 3 earned runs. In fact, in 5 of 7 starts he had allowed 2 or fewer runs and somehow picked up 3 losses and 0 wins. Wells bounced back from his last outing today and gave the team 6.2 solid innings allowing 5 hits and a walk while striking out 3. He allowed 2 runs (both earned). You can’t really say enough about what a great job this guy has done for the Cubs this year. He’s due for some regression, but he’s a pretty good pitcher. The Cubs helped him out today. They actually scored runs for him and didn’t blow the leads he left with. The Cubs got on the board in the 2nd with a Geovany Soto home run. Soto’s power stroke is back along with Lee’s. Good things to come if those two keep hitting like they should be. In the 4th inning the Cubs had a chance to put a crooked number on the board after Theriot walked to lead off the inning and then Bradley doubled down the left field line. Lee popped out and Sowers intentionally walked Soto to face Jake Fox. Fox hit a line drive to CF that scored Theriot on a sac fly. That was all they got. We’ve seen this all too often this year from this offense, but in the next inning they’d take advantage in a similar situation. Randy Wells started the rally with a single to RF and Soriano singled on a grounball in the hole that sneaked past both Peralta and Valbuena. Something else we’ve seen far too often this year is the sacrifice bunt. You bunt when you’re playing for one run. This is the 5th inning, the Cubs have runners on 1st and 2nd and nobody out. They have a 2-run lead. You look for the big inning here. You don’t give away an out in this situation, but that’s exactly what the Cubs did as Theriot laid down a sac bunt moving Wells and Soriano up a base. Milton Bradley was hit by a pitch loading the bases with still one out. This time Lee didn’t pop up. He hit a hard line drive to LF to drive Wells in, but the runners had to hold up to make sure the ball got down in front of DeRosa before moving up so the Cubs only got one run. Geovany Soto got behind in the count and then worked a walk driving in Soriano to take a 4-0 lead. Jake Fox followed that up with a double to deep center that was nearly a home run. The Cubs got 2 more runs and had broken the game open. That wasn’t something we’d seen from this team lately. The DeRosas got a run back in the top half of the 6th after Carroll led off with a triple and DeRosa drove him in with a sac fly. Randy Wells allowed a 1-out single in the 7th and then a 2-out single in the 8th putting runners on 1st and 3rd. Lou went to the bullpen. Sean Marshall was brought in to face Travis Hafner. Hafner singled in the 2nd run for the DeRosas. Marshall pitched a scoreless 8th. the Cubs led 6-2 entering the 9th and Lou went with Jose Ascanio who made it a bit interesting. 2 on and only 1 out so Lou goes with his closer who has been very good since the early part of the season. He was really good today as he got 2 quick outs to record the save and keep the win for Randy Wells. The Cubs swept the DeRosas and they’ve won 4 in a row and 5 of their last 6. Really good game for the Cubs. The Cubs have scored 26 runs in their last 4 games after scoring 26 in their previous 55 games. the Cubs head to Atlanta for a make-up game on Monday night and then up to Detroit for a 3-game series beginning Tuesday. The Cubs are tied in the loss column with the Cardinals at 31, but the Cardinals have 5 more wins than the Cubs do. The Brewers now have 32 losses, but are still technically ahead of the Cubs. The Cardinals always represented the Cubs toughest competition this year. Milwaukee is falling back to the pack as expected.