Chicago Cubs sweep Milwaukee Brewers behind dominant pitching

Continuing the theme of the weekend, the Chicago Cubs offense did just enough and the starting pitching dominated in Sunday’s finale against the Brewers.

Limiting the Milwaukee Brewers to just two hits over seven shutout innings Sunday, right-hander Tyler Chatwood turned in his best start of the year as the Chicago Cubs completed a four-game sweep with a 2-0 win.

Zach Davies matched Chatwood pitch-for-pitch until the bottom of the fifth. Addison Russell led off the inning with a triple into the right field corner. After Jason Heyward struck out, Chatwood opened the scoring with a single up the middle past a pulled-in infield.

Chicago (15-10) added their second – and final – tally in the bottom of the sixth when Russell plated Anthony Rizzo on a sacrifice fly. All told, Davies had a solid afternoon on the mound – he pitched into the sixth, allowing just two earned on five hits.

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His counterpart, Chatwood, did it all. Most notably, he walked only three hitters. Control has proven to be his biggest adversary this season – but he had it all working on Sunday. The right-hander struck out four, picking up his second win. With the outstanding effort, he lowered his ERA to a rotation-leading 2.83.

Milwaukee (16-13) had come into this series winners of eight straight games. But in Chicago, they ran into a buzzsaw. Over the course of the four games, the Cubs outscored the Brewers by a 9-2 margin. The fact Chicago tallied just nine runs over four games and still came away with a sweep tells you just how good the pitching staff was this weekend.

Furthermore, Sunday marked the Cubs’ fifth shutout of Milwaukee this season – and we’re still in the first month.

The respective 11-game hit streaks of both Javier Baez and Albert Almora came to a close in the loss. Russell and Willson Contreras were the only Cubs starters with hits (each had two). As noted earlier. Chatwood recorded the only other Cubs hit on the afternoon.

What Stood Out

Next: Can the Cubs keep this up? You bet they can.

Up Next

Chicago welcomes Colorado to Wrigley on Monday night to open a three-game series.

Jon Lester (2-1, 3.29) takes the ball in the opener. Kyle Freeland (1-4, 4.33) will oppose him for the Rockies. First pitch is set for 6:05 p.m. CT.