Say what you want about the Chicago Cubs and the moves Manager Lou Piniella made before this weekend’s sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers in Milwaukee, but look at the results.
The Cubs went into Milwaukee and beat the Brewers 8-1 Friday night, 5-1 Saturday and finished the series off with a 12-2 win on Sunday with Ryan Dempster, Ted Lilly and Randy Wells each picking up a win.
In the series, Lilly made his season debut with the Cubs in front of a raucous crowd of 43,410. While at times in the beginning he looked a bit wild, he pitched well. His first pitch was clocked at 76 mph. In all, Lilly threw 78 pitches over six shut-out innings before being pulled for Carlos Zambrano who made his first relief appearance for the Cubs.
Z was greeted by a standing ovation at Miller Park and after taking the mound, he only needed two pitches to get out of the inning. Later, Zambrano, known to be one of MLB’s best hitting pitchers, came to bat with the bases loaded, and hit a sacrifice fly to score another run. Later, Sean Marshall and Carlos Marmol closed out the game.
If that wasn’t enough, the Cubs continued their assault on the Brewers today. While most Cubs fans were enjoying the home runs by Tyler Colvin, Kosuke Fukudome, Geovany Soto and Derrek Lee, another little scenario was playing out that happens quite rarely in baseball.
Both Colvin and Fukudome were one triple away from hitting for the cycle. Neither one completed the cycle, but it seemed Colvin was close when he hit a liner to Prince Fielder in the 8th that would have gone to the corner for a possible triple had Fielder not made a nice leap for the ball.
This comes on the heels of another curious cycle that didn’t happen for two players in last night’s Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Twins game when a player from each time made a bid to hit for the cycle. Both Joe Mauer of the Twins and David DeJesus of the Royals were one home run away from accomplishing the feat. The game went to 12 innings with the Twins finally beating the Royals 9-7.
The last time there were two cycles hit in one day was on September 1, 2008, by Stephen Drew, with the Arizona Diamondbacks, and Adrian Beltre, while he was with the Seattle Mariners.
Just days ago, the Brew Crew demolished the Pittsburgh Pirates in record-setting fashion, outscoring them 36-1 in a 3-game series. The Cubs repaid the favor for the Pirates by doing near the same to the Brewers, outscoring them 25-4 on their home turf in this series.
Re-printed with permission of the author.
In addition to writing her Chicago Cubs column for Examiner.com, Miriam Romain has been published in several Cubs annuals by Maple Street Press and is a contributor to SportsClimax.com . She is also writing a book with the working title “Summers at Wrigley with my Dad.”
Copyright ©2010 Sports Climax™
Zambrano (14-5) was on the mound for the first time since September 2 and hurled a no-hitter against the jet-lagged Astros while striking out 10 and walking only one in a 5-0 victory on Sunday.