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Weeks, Suppan lead Brewers past Cubs

Apr 3, 2008 - 12:18 AM CHICAGO (Ticker) -- Rickie Weeks homered on the game's first pitch and Jeff Suppan worked 6 1/3 solid innings, leading the Milwaukee Brewers to an 8-2 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday.

Weeks provided an immediate jolt for the Brewers with a shot that landed on Waveland Avenue beyond the left field bleachers at Wrigley Field.

"He (Cubs starter Ted Lilly) threw me an inside fastball, and I got it," Weeks said. "I decided before I came to the plate that if the first pitch was going to be an inside fastball, I was going to swing."

It was the first of 14 hits for Milwaukee, which knocked out Lilly (0-1) in the fifth inning. Lilly surrendered four runs and five hits in 4 2/3 frames.

"It certainly isn't the way you want to start a ballgame," Lilly said of the leadoff blast. "But I was able to go out there and pitch around some of my problems. As a starting pitcher, it's important to try to get momentum going in our favor. I wasn't able to do that.

"I didn't have a good fastball. I wasn't locating well from the beginning. I was still able to compete. It just wasn't enough today."

Suppan (1-0) scattered six hits in 6 1/3 innings, giving up solo home runs by Derrek Lee and Geovany Soto. He walked two and struck out two.

"Give him all the credit in the world," Milwaukee catcher Jason Kendall said of Suppan. "He was around the plate all day and had real good movement on all his pitches."

Suppan left after Soto's homer pulled the Cubs within 5-2. Salomon Torres and David Riske combined for 2 2/3 scoreless innings in relief.

"It starts with your pitching," Brewers manager Ned Yost said. "If your pitcher's out executing pitches, you can play your defense to it. Benny (Sheets) did that (Monday) and Supp did that in great fashion today.

"I was very, very pleased with Supp today. I thought he did just a magnificent job. He was keeping the ball down. His cutter was working good. His changeup was good. He was spotting his fastball."

Ryan Braun and Kendall each collected three hits for Milwaukee. A former Cub, Kendall gave the Brewers an 8-2 cushion with a two-run double in the ninth.

"I don't try to do too much at the plate," Kendall said. "I just try to do what I can to help the team. Today, I was able to hit a few balls hard. But the real story was the way Jeff pitched."

Leading 5-1, Milwaukee loaded the bases in the seventh inning with none out but failed to score.

It appeared as if the Brewers' failure to break open the contest might come back to haunt them. After Soto's homer, the Cubs brought the tying run to the plate in the seventh.

But Torres struck out Alfonso Soriano swinging to leave runners stranded on second and third.

Riske followed with two hitless innings for the Brewers, who have won the first two contests of the season-opening three-game series.

"Yeah, it's disappointing," Lee said of Chicago's 0-2 start. "You never envision it coming out, getting beat two games in a row. But it's happened. All you can do is come back tomorrow and change it."

"Pressing? Pressing for what? We've only played a couple of games," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said when asked if his team was playing tight early in the season. "The concern is that we play better baseball."

Milwaukee extended its lead to 3-0 in the fourth on Bill Hall's RBI double and Corey Hart's run-scoring two-base hit.

After Lee homered in the bottom of the fourth, Braun greeted reliever Kevin Hart with an RBI single in the fifth.

In the sixth, Corey Hart scored on catcher Soto's throwing error to make it 5-1.