Cubs complete sweep of brewers in Milwaukee

The Chicago Cubs continued their offensive onslaught to the detriment of the home town Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday, winning 11-4 to complete a 4 game sweep of their division rivals.  The Northsiders also continued their solid pitching, with recently acquired Rich Harden winning his first NL start by allowing 1 run on 6 hits and chalking up 9 strikeouts.  Just five days ago the Cubs and Brewers were tied for the lead in the NL Central Division; now Chicago leads Milwaukee and St. Louis (who lost to Atlanta on Thursday) by 5 games.

The victory on Wednesday night raised the Northsiders’ record to 26-30 away from home.  The Brewers’ loss, conversely, extended their season high home losing streak to 5 losses in a row at Miller Park.  Chicago has been buoyed by a large contingent of their fans who’ve made the 92 mile trip to watch their team play.  The trip has become so commonplace to Cubs partisans that the Brewers’ park is often referred to as “Wrigley Field North”. 

While Chicago has received solid pitching during the series—particularly from Ryan Dempster on Wednesday night and Harden on Thursday—they’ve dominated with their bats.  During the 4 game series the Cubs pounded out 49 hits and scored 31 runs.  Compounding the Brewers woes has been their lack of timely hitting, with the team on a 5 for 65 streak of futility with runners in scoring position.  The Brewers did manage to break a run of 20 straight failed opportunities with runners in scoring position, but appeared to lose their composure as they game drew to a close.  Reliever Eric Gagne was ejected for throwing at Jim Edmonds in the top of the 9th, and Prince Fielder got the hook for arguing balls and strikes in the bottom of the frame.

The Cubs have now won 8 of their last 10 games in Milwaukee.  The team’s next big test will be a three game homestand against St. Louis starting on August 8th, and they’ll need to keep up their winning form against Milwaukee as they have 6 games remaining with the Brewers including a three game road series to close out the regular season.