The Gist: Game 29

Cubs 19 - Brewers 5

I learned something new tonight. According to DirecTV, the Iowa Quad Cities market is part of the Chicagoland area, so I was blacked out from watching it in HD on ESPN. Fortunately, Fox Sports Net Wisconsin was carrying the game. For a moment, I was anticipating the great call of Bob Uecker, but then I realized he does radio. Being treated to the sounds of Brian Anderson and Bill Schroeder* call a blowout game was like hearing play-by-play at a funeral. If I had a dollar for every time I heard "It's hard to pitch with a big lead like this", I'd be eating a New York Strip tonight instead of chicken noodle soup.

The bats showed up in a big way and the pitching staff turned in a workman-like performance to hopefully get us off the schneid. Dempster pitched okay, going six innings and giving up three runs, striking out one while walking five. Every Cub position starter not named Pie had at least one hit, with team turning in 17 for the night. The team had one inning where they scored 5 and two innings when they scored 6, and batted around twice. Geovanny Soto had two homers and six RBI and Mark DeRosa had two hits in three at-bats, with two RBI, three runs and three walks. That's more like it from the best hitting offense in the NL. Speaking of which, check out the OBP of our starters:

Reed Johnson: .372
Theriot: .391
D-Lee: .437
Aramis: .411
Fukudome: .436
DeRosa: .420
Soto: .427
Pie: .286

Damn! No wonder we set a club record for most wins in April.

Thunderwatch: Murton went one for two in late inning duty, and his first hit of the season to reach the outfield grass produced a run.

Odd that this three game series is the last time we play Milwaukee until July. Soriano is back tomorrow, where Lou said he will start in LF and hit leadoff. I'm hoping for the best. Tomorrow's rubber match features Chaz (4-1, 2.21 ERA) against Yovani Gallardo (0-0, 0.64).

*As a rule, every pack of Topps baseball cards sold in the mid to late 80's included a Bill Schroeder card.