Cubs-Brewers

Jackson, Cubs' bats steal final game of series

By Tony Rusch




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Cubs pitcher Edwin Jackson came into Wednesday's game to close out a month of July that has been nothing less than stellar for the seasoned right-hander.

Jackson, who had a dissapointing performance during the early months of the season, finished the month of July with an impressive 1.83 ERA and a microscopic WHIP of .83 while racking up 22 strikeouts and a winning record of 4-1. He would take on Milwaukee's Willy Peralta who has struggled as of late.

The slumping bat of Anthony Rizzo opened up the scoring in the third when Rizzo greeted Peralta with his 15th homerun of the season to right center. The Cubs continued scoring in the fourth with a Starlin Castro solo bomb and later a David DeJesus RBI single putting the cubs up 4-0.

The game was delayed with two outs in the Brewers half of the sixth inning when God himself attempted to stifle the red hot Jackson with a 66 minute rain delay; to no avail. Jackson exited the game after eight strong innings giving up just one run on eight hits and tallying four strikeouts. The Cubs would eventually add on two more runs on another DeJesus RBI single bringing the score to a decisive 6-1. Chicago's Blake Parker took the mound in the ninth to close out the game in a non-save situation (Watch the game recap here).

The Cubs were able to salvage the final game of the four-game series against the adversarial Brewers bringing the club's record to a less-than-impressive 49-58 which places them a whopping 16 games behind the MLB-leading Pittsburgh Pirates in the NL Central.

Despite their unsatisfactory record, Wednesday's silver lining comes to us courtesy of Edwin Jackson who shows no signs of yielding. The Cubs signed the 29-year-old in the offseason with a juicy contract worth $52 million over four years and coupled with an $8 million signing bonus. July seemed to be the turning point for Jackson who is finally proving himself worthy of his contract. Rizzo and Castro, who had the game's only homeruns, were finally able to exhibit some power after posting dissapointing numbers over the course of the last month. Hopefully Wednesday's blasts can kickstart the duo back into plate production.

Cubs will look to make it two-in-a-row tonight with another home series against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Newcomer Chris Rusin, who has been impressive over his last two starts, will take on Ricky Nolasco who is looking give the team its 11th straight road victory.

The keys to tonight's game will be giving Rusin run support against a hot Dodgers team.