Howard's Late Homer Lifts Cubs to 5-1 Victory

APPLETON, WI - Wednesday afternoon’s game was dominated by the starting pitching early as Drew Gray and Patricio Aquino went scoreless inning for scoreless inning through the first five frames.

Gray delivered five shutout innings and gave up just one base hit, looking in control and locked in for his second straight start since the All-Star Break. In his last two outings Gray has combined gone 10 innings, allowing just one run on four hits.

Meanwhile Aquino pitched to contact brilliantly and worked five shutout innings of his own, giving up three hits, not walking a batter, and only striking out one.

With the game in the hands of both bullpens, it was the Cubs that took struck first.

With one out in the sixth Brett Bateman drew a walk to give South Bend a runner aboard with less than two outs for the first time. Steven Cruz was the first man out of the pen and after allowing a line drive single to right off the bat of Pedro Ramirez, the Cubs had men at the corners with one down. A sac-fly to left from Jefferson Rojas gave the Cubs the lead.

That meant Gray was in line for his first career win but it didn’t take Wisconsin long to bounce back. Nick Hull, who’s been the best relief arm for the Cubs over the last month-and-a-half, allowed a solo homer with two down to Luke Adams to tie up the game. The hit was only the second of the game for a team that entered with the best win percentage of any full season affiliate team in Minor League Baseball.

With one down the seventh, Ed Howard launched his first road homer of the season, right off the top of the tall wall in left to vault the Cubs ahead again. With two outs and no one aboard Brian Kalmer blooped a ball out to right-center and Jheremy Vargas collided with Eduarqui Fernandez . The scary collision wound up with Kalmer standing at second. After a long trip from the trainer both players remained in the game.

Jordan Nwogu doubled on the first pitch after the delay, a looping drive down the line in left to make it 3-1 Cubs.

Hull came back with a scoreless seventh inning he combined with Mitchell Tyranski to bring the game into the ninth with the Cubs stick up by a pair. The flame throwing closer Yerlin Rodriguez came in for the ninth and had nearly no control. He walked Parker Chavers and then drilled Kalmer in the helmet with a 98 mph fastball. The pitch appeared to hit Kalmer in the ear flap and sent him crashing to the ground. Neuroscience Group Field fell into an eerie silence but Kalmer eventually got up and walked back into the clubhouse under his own power.

Nwogu walked to load the bases and David Avitia’s walk that came immediately after brought in another run. A wild pitch from Rodriguez, who pinch ran for Kalmer, as the Cubs made it a 5-1 advantage.

Tyranski worked a clean ninth to tally his first save of the season.