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Fukudome breaks out as Cubs top Cards

Sep 21, 2008 - 10:47 PM CHICAGO (Ticker) -- Everything is lining up nicely for the Chicago Cubs.

Kosuke Fukudome started in right field and had two hits out of the leadoff spot and Ryan Dempster had a nice postseason tune-up as the Chicago Cubs topped the the St. Louis Cardinals, 5-1, on Sunday.

Rookie Casey McGehee had his first two major league hits and drove in two runs for the Cubs (94-60), who can clinch home-field advantage throughout the National League playoffs with a loss by the Philadelphia Phillies (87-68) later Sunday.

Fukudome, who was benched recently and came into the game with a .173 batting average and one home run in his last 38 games, was inserted into the leadoff spot by manager Lou Piniella in order to get some at-bats before the playoffs.

"It was nice to see (Fukudome) swing the bat the way he did," Piniella said. "My plan was to get him as many at-bats as possible starting today. We definitely need to have him contributing to our offense as we move on to the postseason."

The Japanese slugger responded with a leadoff double and a single in the third, coming in to score Chicago's first run.

Dempster (17-6) pitched five solid innings, allowing one run and six hits while striking out one. The righthander was lifted after just 67 pitches as the Cubs are lining up their starting pitching for the playoffs.

"(Piniella) definitely wanted to get me out with the minimum amount of pitches," Dempster said. "He also wanted to get some other guys out there to pitch that might be able to help us in the playoffs.

"Things kept going extremely well for me this season. I believe I have surprised a lot of people with the year that I have had. However, this is the type of year I envisioned when I was busting my (rear) all winter and working hard."

Rookie Jeff Samardzija, Chad Gaudin, Randy Wells and Bobby Howry each turned in a scoreless inning of relief.

The Cardinals took an early 1-0 lead on Albert Pujols' sacrifice fly in the first, but Chicago pulled even when Fukudome scored on Mitch Hoffpauir's fielder's choice.

McGehee put the Cubs on top with a sacrifice fly in the fourth and added an RBI single in the sixth to open up the advantage.

"When you are growing up thinking about your first major league hit, you aren't thinking it's going to be a 33-hopper to the third baseman," McGehee said of his infield hit in the second. "But I will take it.

"It definitely was cool to be part of a win, and to be able to contribute to Dempster's 17th win. We haven't locked up home-field advantage yet, but this gives us another step towards that."

Braden Looper (12-14) suffered the loss for St. Louis, allowing four runs and nine hits in six innings.

"I faced a good Cubs lineup a lot of times, so I have a game plan for those guys," Looper said. "Today there was a bunch of people they threw out there that I have never pitched to. That created some new problems for me, but ultimately I needed to make better pitches than I did."

The Cardinals (80-75) have only a slim hope left of reaching the playoffs, currently sitting six games behind the New York Mets (86-69) with seven remaining.