Pirates Win 4th straight; Beat cubs 8-4

Paul Maholm(5-11) finally got some nice run support, and got the win in a 8-4 win over the Cubs. He went 7+ innings, giving up 4 earned runs on 5 hits. He started the 8th inning but did not get an out, He let Alfonso Soriano and Mike Fontenot get singles and then he was pulled for Shawn Chacon who let the two runners score on sacrifice flies so the runs were charged to Maholm(4.76). Maholm sort of took matters into his own hands, coming up to bat in the 2nd inning with the bases loaded and 2 outs he lined a single to the outfield to get the first two runs of the game. The Cubs tied it up 2-2 in the top of the 3rd but Freddy Sanchez(2) and Xavier Nady(14) both hit solo homers in the bottom of the 3rd to make it 4-2. Ryan Doumit(16) and Jose Bautista(22) both got RBI doubles in the bottom of the 5th to put the game away off of starter Jason Marquis(6-5) who left after the Bautista double. The Pirates are playing well against the teams they need to be playing well against and if they can win at least one of these last two games can actually think about making a run at the division. I think the winner of the Spooky Central will be not much higher than .500 like the Cardinals(39-43) last year who are kind of making a run this year and are 8 games back, the Bucs(39-47) are 10 games back(4th place) of Milwaukee(49-37), I think they will fall back a bit though with the young guys like Fielder and Hall has no postseason experience in the second half. The Cubbies(43-42) are 5.5 games back and are in 2nd place.