Cubs Win Behind Paul Maholm

The Cubs got a 4-0 victory against the Houston Astros to earn their first victory against their NL Central rivals.

Bud Norris was decent for the Astros going 6 innings and only giving up 4 runs. He uncharacteristically only had one K in the game. Norris’ problem was the long ball. He gave up 3 home runs and 4 other hits. That was not Norris’ biggest problem.

His biggest problem was Paul Maholm. Maholm had been 0-4 in his last eight outings, so he needed to bounce back. He did bounce back, giving up no runs into the 9th. Maholm only gave up four hits, walked one and stuck out 6 through 8.1 innings. Dale Sveum might forgive him for walking the pitcher after the rest of the start. Carlos Marmol came in with runners on 2nd and 3rd and a 4 run lead. Marmol struck out the first batter and then plunked Chris Snyder to load the bases. Marmol has to make it interesting. After going down 2-0 in the count Marmol got a sharp line out to end the game

Alfonso Soriano hit an absolute bomb, Steve Clevenger hit his first career home run and Luis Valbuena hit a two out home run to break the 0-0 tie. Alfonso Soriano has 15 HR and has hit all of them since May 15th. This bodes very well for his trade market.

The Astros did absolutely nothing on offense. David Dejesus made a great play against the ivy to make sure of that.

Anthony Rizzo had his first walk as a Cub, but went 0-3.