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Cubs hit four HRs, sweep Brewers with 12-2 win

Apr 25, 2010 - 10:33 PM By COLIN FLY AP Sports Writer

MILWAUKEE(AP) -- Ryan Theriot started hitting the ball well while not much else was going right for the Cubs in New York. Now, all of Theriot's teammates have joined in.

Derrek Lee hit a towering 445-foot home run, Theriot had five hits and Chicago smacked four homers to complete a three-game sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers with a 12-2 win on Sunday.

"This is just the opposite of New York when we couldn't get any runs, couldn't get anything going," Lee said. "This series, we got guys on base, drove them in, hit the ball out of the ballpark. It makes the game a lot easier when you score some runs."

The Cubs lost three of four in New York to start this road trip, but that seems so long ago. Randy Wells (2-0) continued Chicago's string of strong starting pitching performances, allowing two runs in seven innings on the heels of wins by Ryan Dempster and Ted Lilly earlier in the series.

He also pitched with a huge lead thanks to homers by Kosuke Fukudome, Tyler Colvin and Geovany Soto off Brewers starter Dave Bush. Chicago scored nine times in the first four innings against Bush (1-1) and had a season-high 18 hits.

Everyone in the starting lineup had at least a single and Theriot recorded multiple hits for the fifth straight game.

"You're able to score runs when you're getting hits throughout the lineup," he said. "One through nine, one through eight, we had guys who were banging and it makes it tough to pitch to (us)."

Theriot finished 5 of 6 with two runs and three RBIs and is 14 of 25 in his last five games, but the most important thing with him in the clubhouse was his 4-year-old son's pirate ship.

While the Cubs were struggling in New York, Theriot and his son, Houston, put together the ship, but it couldn't come on the commercial flight his family took home.

"He reminded me about it again," Theriot said. "He's serious about his pirate stuff."

Milwaukee will face the Pirates at home starting Monday after beating them 20-0 on Thursday and outscoring them 36-1 in a three-game sweep completed just three days ago. In this series, Milwaukee was outscored 25-4 and Brewers manager Ken Macha said he wasn't sure what type of team he has at this point.

"The Pittsburgh series, we not only hit the ball, but we pitched very well," Macha said. "This series we did neither."

Theriot again got it started for the Cubs with a leadoff single in the first and scored three batters later on Colvin's two-run double as Chicago took a 3-0 lead in the first.

Fukudome hit a two-out, two-run homer in the second. Colvin added his solo shot in the third and Soto's homer on the first pitch from Bush in the fourth to put the Cubs ahead 7-0.

Lee then hit his two-out, two-run drive well over the Brewers bullpen in the second deck to make it 9-0. The shot nearly hit one of three Harley-Davidson motorcycles at the back of the section.

"I thought he was going to win a Harley, I was going to try to talk him into giving it to me if he did," Theriot said.

Lee joked: "If you hit the Harley, you get it? I should've swung harder."

It appeared that Macha wanted to stick with Bush to help conserve the bullpen, but the right-hander couldn't make it out of the fourth and left allowing 10 hits and nine runs. Milwaukee was forced to use five relievers.

"I would say not much of anything went right," Bush said.

The Cubs got dazzling performances from their starters throughout the series. Dempster allowed one run in 7 2-3 innings on Friday night, Lilly threw six shutout innings in his first start after shoulder surgery in the offseason on Saturday night and Wells was nearly as sharp.

He stayed out of trouble most of the day and limited the Brewers' top two hitters, Ryan Braun and Prince Fielder, to one hit in five at-bats.

"We had a good series. Swung the bat, pitching was great," Wells said. "It's what you want to get after a road trip like New York. A lot of positives came out of this - a winning road trip and we sweep a divisional rival."

NOTES: The Cubs play their first home night game of the season on Monday against the Nationals. ... Cubs OF Marlon Byrd had the day off. ... A Cubs fan fell about 14 feet from the lower level in left field trying to catch foul balls during batting practice. Batting practice was delayed about 10 minutes and he was taken to a hospital, but was conscious. A hospital spokeswoman said that privacy laws prohibited them from releasing any more information. ... Brewers RHP Jeff Suppan was taken out of the rotation after two shaky starts in favor of Chris Narveson.