7/9/08 vs Reds; W 5-1; (55-36)

Carlos Zambrano earned his tenth win of the season Wednesday night at Wrigley Field. In doing so, he dominated the Reds, retiring 20 in a row following a second inning home run to Adam Dunn. Thanks to Geovony Soto cleaning up Jeff Keppinger, who reached on an error in the first, Z faced only one batter over the minimum through eight innings. Lou let him bat in the bottom of the eighth, and run the bases, leading me to believe he would go for the complete game. He didn't. Carlos Marmol pitched the ninth in relief, but didn't make it all the way through. Kerry Wood came in to face one batter with the bases loaded and earn the save.

Zambrano kept pace with Ryan Dempster, who picked up his tenth win on Tuesday night. Ted Lilly will look to get his tenth in the series finale on Thursday night. Three starting pitchers at ten wins before the All Star break is pretty good, right. Rich Harden's stats in most categories are better than any of those three.

He has a better ERA, strikeouts per innings pitched, as well as WHIP. We have known for most of the year this team could score runs. It looks as though the pitching has solidified, and with one acquisition, could challenge for the top staff in all of baseball.

You do have to score to win...and offensively, Aramis led the way at the plate, with two rbis on a double and a solo home run. That completed his cycle...over two games...since he singled and tripled on Tuesday night. He also made another nice defensive play at third.

Derek Lee had a nice defensive play in the ninth. Paul Bako led off and hit a ball headed down the right field line. Derek was in position to make the play when the ball hit first base and caromed high and back to Derek's right. He made a bare handed stop of the ball and flipped to Marmol covering.

After struggling through a tough couple of weeks, starting with their first losing streak of four, a win tonight gets them to .500 during those two weeks. It also gets them back to twenty games above .500 on the season.

Last night was particularly effective as the Brewers and Cardinals both lost. That increases the lead in the NL Central to 4.5 games. The Angels and Rays are both on losing streaks, putting the Cubs just one game back in the loss column to the Rays for the best record in the league.

Go Cubs Go!