Brewers 7 @ Cubs 4

Boxscore

Back in the swing
Three contribute in big way

When the long baseball season hasn't gone quite according to plan for an individual player, the primary goal is to go home feeling good about himself in some way.

Dave Bush, Jody Gerut and Mike Rivera know the feeling, and each had reason to smile Thursday afternoon for the roles they played in the Milwaukee Brewers' 7-4 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field.

Bush battled through 5 2/3 innings with more guile than stuff, Gerut smacked a huge grand slam and Rivera finally provided some breathing room with a two-run double in the seventh after several opportunities had slipped away from the Brewers.

"It always feels good going into the off-season strong," said Gerut, whose bases-loaded blast in the fourth inning off Randy Wells erased a 2-1 deficit. "I'm really happy for whatever I can get."

This paragraph from a writeup on the game from Bleed Cubbie Blue is either entertaining or heartbreaking...depending on your point of view.

The Cubs lost to the Brewers 7-4, splitting a series they should have won and realistically needed to sweep to have any chance to get back into the thick of postseason contention. Now, nine games out of first place and seven games back in the wild-card race, they are in 2007 Phillies territory (the Phils made up 7.5 games in 17, but they had no one else in front of them), and I can see the numbers as well as anyone else can. It'd take a major miracle now.

Entertaining or heartbreaking...maybe a little bit of both.