Sheets outdueled by Zambrano
Brewers ace dealt first loss of season by Cubs
CHICAGO -- For a few tense moments in the first inning, Cubs fans worried about the health of starter Carlos Zambrano.
It turns out the Brewers should have been the ones worrying.
Zambrano overcame a forearm cramp and combined with a pair of Cubs relievers on a one-hit shutout, sending baseball's only undefeated team to its first loss, 4-0, in front of 38,743 on Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field.
During his 7 1/3 scoreless innings on the mound, Zambrano (1-0) actually outhit the entire Brewers lineup. A career .200 hitter going in, he collected two hits, including a go-ahead RBI single in the second inning off Brewers starter Ben Sheets (1-1). Meanwhile, Milwaukee was limited to two walks and a Russell Branyan single and never moved a runner past first base.
"He had the upper hand all day," said Sheets. "On the mound and at the plate."
Zambrano and relievers Chad Fox and LaTroy Hawkins limited a Brewers offense that had collected nine or more hits in each of its first three games.
"You can't dwell on it," Brewers second baseman Junior Spivey said. "It's what, Game 4? There's a lot of baseball to go. Nobody should be down on their performance today. Ben shouldn't be down."
On a cool and windy day on the North Side, Sheets struggled to grip his signature curveball and dropped his fourth straight decision to the Cubs. He allowed four runs on eight hits in seven innings, with half the damage coming on Todd Walker's two-run double in the seventh.
Former Brewer Jeromy Burnitz went 1-for-3 with a stolen base, two runs scored and his first Cubs home run, a solo shot in the sixth inning.
"I threw a lot more fastballs," said Sheets, who lamented that his curveball "wasn't doing anything."
Zambrano called briefly for the Cubs' athletic trainer with one out in the first inning after throwing a ball to Spivey. Zambrano pointed to his right arm, but threw several warmup tosses and remained in the game to strike out Spivey and retire Lyle Overbay on a groundout. Later, Zambrano and Cubs manager Dusty Baker attributed the incident to a cramp in his forearm.
"The guy is throwing hard and all of a sudden he grabs his elbow, which is something you never want to see a pitcher do," Brewers catcher Chad Moeller said. "I don't know if it was bothering him some throughout the game. I think it was at the end because his velocity dropped down."
In between, Zambrano was all but unhittable.
"His stuff was moving all over the place," Spivey said. "You couldn't go up there and look for certain pitches because his stuff was moving so much. I don't think he located like he wanted to, but his stuff was so good that he could get away with doing that. There were pitches that looked, to me, like strikes, but I came in and looked on video and they weren't."
Said Yost: "He was lights out today, that's for sure. That just shows you why he's one of the best pitchers in the National League. When he's on, he's just about unhittable."
The Cubs took a 1-0 lead in the second inning, when Burnitz led off with a walk, stole second base and then scored when Zambrano rolled a single through the right side of the infield. Burnitz made it 2-0 in the sixth when he lined a one-out solo home run off Sheets.
Zambrano singled with one out in the seventh and chugged to third when Corey Patterson followed with a single. Patterson moved to second when Brewers left fielder Geoff Jenkins tried to cut down Zambrano, leaving the Brewers to decide whether to pitch to Todd Walker -- who was 0-for-3 in the game, but came in 11-for-30 against Sheets -- or walk him to set up the double play and face Nomar Garciaparra, Chicago's No. 3 hitter, with the bases loaded.
Yost had Sheets pitch to Walker, and he delivered a two-run double for a 4-1 lead.
"We were trying to get a ground ball and get out of it that way," said Yost.
Sheets won his first six decisions against the Cubs, but is 1-7 since.
"If you look back, I got a lot of runs in games," Sheets said. "I didn't pitch great every time out to start my career. It wasn't like I started 5-0, 6-0, whatever it was, because I was dominant. That is a lot different lineup and pitching staff over there than when I started."
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