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Cubs shut out Braves behind Hill

Apr 20, 2007 - 4:55 AM ATLANTA (Ticker) -- Rich Hill made sure the Chicago Cubs went home on a high note.

Hill continued his undefeated start with eight strong innings in the Cubs' 3-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves.

Michael Barrett and Aramis Ramirez both homered for Chicago, which avoided the sweep of the brief two-game series prior to hosting the Central Division foes St. Louis and Milwaukee for the next six games.

With his latest outing, Hill (3-0) continued a stellar start, having not allowed a run in his last 16 innings. The lefthander yielded four hits, issued three walks and posted a season-high seven strikeouts in this one. A second-inning single to Tony Pena Jr. was the first this season with a runner on base.

"I'm looking to pick up where I left off last year," said Hill, who was 6-3 with a 2.93 ERA after the All-Star break last season. "I want to stay on the attack, stay aggressive. If you keep pitching aggressively, there's no double on your mind on any pitch (you throw). You're going to throw it with conviction."

"He's pitching as well as anybody in baseball," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. "He mixes up his pitches well and does a nice job side-stepping."

Hill had allowed just three singles through the first five innings until Kelly Johnson ripped a ground-rule double leading off the sixth. After getting Edgar Renteria to fly out and Chipper Jones to ground out, the lefthander walked Andruw Jones before forcing Jeff Francoeur to hit into a fielder's choice.

"He's been good every time I faced him," said Francoeur, who remembered a one-hit performance by Hill in 2005 when the southpaw was with Class AA Tennessee and Francoeur was with Mississippi. "He threw really well against us. He threw great. He had us off-balance all night."

"His fastball was good," Braves left fielder Matt Diaz said. "When he has command of his breaking ball, it's even better. He's deceptive and he locates. He located the ball really well tonight."

The 27-year-old Hill's ERA dropped to 0.41. The southpaw has allowed two or fewer earned runs in 12 of his last 14 starts dating to August 6.

"It's human (to hear about stats)," Hill said. "But I'm not going to the computer or checking the papers. The only thing I'm doing is looking at the next lineup."

Hill worked around two more walks in his final two innings before closer Ryan Dempster retired Andruw Jones, Francoeur and Diaz to notch his third save of the season.

Barrett opened the scoring in the fourth with his second homer of the season off Mark Redman (0-3), who finished with three runs and seven hits allowed in 7 1/3 frames.

"I felt pretty good out there," said Redman, who surrendered 12 runs in his first two Atlanta starts. "I have a tendency in April to have my arm too high. Today, I had it in the normal slot. ... I was just trying to keep the game as close as possible." "

Ramirez added his second blast of the season in the sixth to extend his hitting streak to 17 games dating to last season. Mark DeRosa supplied an insurance run by doubling home Ryan Theriot in the eighth.

"We got two-out hits on those home runs," Piniella said. "But it doesn't really matter how many are out when home runs come."

Johnson finished with two of the four hits for the Braves, who were shut out for the second time in seven games.