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Marquis beats former team again, keeps Cubs in first place

Sep 17, 2007 - 12:30 AM ST. LOUIS (Ticker) -- Jason Marquis beat his former team for the third time this season and Matt Murton homered, leading the Chicago Cubs to a 4-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday.

The Cubs' (78-72) win kept Milwaukee (76-72) a game behind in the National League Central and pushed the defending World Series champion Cardinals (70-78) seven games back in the division race.

Marquis (12-8), who played for St. Louis from 2004-2006, yielded just one run and five hits over 6 1/3 innings. The righthander faced no more than four hitters in any of his first five innings to improve to 3-1 with a 3.56 ERA.

"It's big because it slowly takes them out of the equation," Marquis said. "But if it was any other opponent - a win is a win - it doesn't matter who you face. Hopefully, we can keep it rolling at home for the Wrigley (Field) fans."

The Cubs put the Cardinals away in the third after threatening in each of the first two frames, when Murton hit a three-run homer to left off Mark Mulder (0-2) for a 3-0 lead. Roger Cedeno added an RBI single three batters later to increase the lead to 4-0.

"I wasn't sure; I knew it had enough distance," Murton said. "It was just whether it was going to stay fair or not. You want to be able to come through in tight ball games. We've done a really good job of that.

"We've come back and we've been able to close games out late. Any type of win is big and giving the team that sense of confidence going down the stretch."

Relievers Carlos Marmol and Bob Howry bridged the 1 2/3-inning gap to closer Ryan Dempster, who worked around a one-out single to Albert Pujols in the ninth for his 28th save in 31 chances.

"We didn't make it easy but we got it done and that's what counts," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said. "Marquis pitched well, Murton had the three-run homer and our relievers came in and really did a nice job."

Mulder went just three innings, surrendering four runs and seven hits.

"I had one bad inning," Mulder said. "My arm kind of dropped there in the second inning. It wasn't bad. It just got a little lower in the third and it just didn't feel very good."

Geovany Soto finished with four hits for the Cubs, who won for the fifth time in six contests.

Rick Ankiel had two hits and Skip Schumaker added two RBI for the Cardinals, who have dropped 10 out of their last 11 games.