Chicago Cubs vs. Milwaukee Brewers

The Milwaukee Brewers have been very good lately and have ascended back into first place in the NL Central, but the one thing they have been having trouble with lately, is the inability to complete a sweep and score no runs while failing at it.

For the second time in four games, the Brewers (42-36) were shutout. They had gone two months without being shutout until losing 7-0 to the San Francisco Giants last Sunday. San Francisco avoided the sweep and Milwaukee took the first two games of their series with the struggling New York Mets, who just so happened to be the last team to pitch a shutout against the Brewers, back on April 18th in New York, 1-0.

So it was fitting that the Brewers once again could not finish off the sweep and were shutout, again 1-0, in the series finale on Wednesday.

Perhaps the Chicago Cubs (37-38) should be happy to know that they are guaranteed to have a shutout victory in the series finale on Sunday, but they will have to weed through three more games to get there.

The emerging rivals meet up in a Fourth of July weekend battle as the Cubs look to take some of the momentum of taking two of three from the Pittsburgh Pirates for their first series victory since a three-game sweep over Cleveland from June 21-23.

If they were not divisional rivals, the Cubs could almost sympathize with the Brewers, however one never sympathizes with the first-place team in your division. Chicago has had a punchless offense in recent weeks, scoring just 129 runs since May 16, easily the fewest in baseball during that time.

The differences between last year and this year are stark for the Cubs, who led the league with 855 runs in 2008.

Ryan Dempster (4-5, 4.09) will head to the mound for the Cubs to attempt to gain ground on the 3 ½ game deficit in which they trail Milwaukee. Dempster allowed five runs on eight hits over five innings in an 8-7 loss to the Chicago White Sox on Friday.

Seth McClung (3-1, 3.55) makes his first career start against Chicago, but has pitched in relief against them this season. In his career he has a 2.55 ERA against the Cubs in 10 appearances.

This will be McClung’s second straight start after he allowed three runs in four innings but did not get a loss as the Brewers beat the San Francisco Giants 7-6 on Saturday.

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