Milwaukee, WI (Sports Network) – Marlon Byrd and Geovany Soto each homered twice and drove in three runs apiece off Randy Wolf to carry the Cubs to a 9-4 win over the Brewers.
Derrek Lee added a two-run shot — the 300th of his career — while Jeff Baker had three hits, two runs scored and an RBI for Chicago, which rebounded from a 3-2 loss in the three-game series opener on Tuesday.
The offensive outburst backed Carlos Zambrano (2-4) to his first win since April 10. In his sixth start of the season and second since returning from a stint in the bullpen, the hard-throwing righty gave up three runs on two hits and five walks in five full frames.
Wolf (4-6) gave up eight runs on nine hits — five long balls — over 4 2/3 innings. The veteran lefty knocked in a pair, as did Ryan Braun in the loss, Milwaukee’s fourth in six games.
“They were on all of [Wolf’s] pitches. They were up,” Brewers manager Ken Macha said.
Byrd gave the Cubs an early 2-0 lead with a blast to left in the first, also scoring Baker.
Braun cut the deficit in half with an RBI groundout in Milwaukee’s turn, but Soto took the first pitch of the second frame over the wall in left-center to quickly get the run back.
Wolf helped his own cause with a double that scored Jim Edmonds and Corey Hart in the fourth before getting pounded for three homers in the fifth.
Lee followed Baker’s one-out single with a shot to left, and Byrd came up next with a similar-looking round-tripper for a 6-3 edge.
“I wasn’t going up there thinking on trying to get to 300 [homers], but it feels good,” Lee said.
After a pop out, Alfonso Soriano walked and Soto pounced on a 1-0 change-up and sent it to left-center to end Wolf’s outing.
James Russell threw a scoreless sixth for Chicago before yielding three straight singles to start the seventh. Andrew Cashner came in and limited the damage to one run on Braun’s sacrifice fly, as Casey McGehee struck out and Edmonds flew out to center.
Baker’s RBI double in the ninth accounted for the final margin.
Before the game, the Cubs placed struggling third baseman Aramis Ramirez on the 15-day disabled list with a left thumb contusion and recalled infielder Chad Tracy from Triple-A Iowa…Milwaukee catcher Gregg Zaun will have surgery on his shoulder next Tuesday to repair a torn labrum, an injury which is season-ending and may be career-ending for the 39-year-old…Chicago leads the 2010 series with the Brewers by a 6-2 count…Zambrano also had two hits…The Brewers went 2-for-16 with runners in scoring position…In the series rubber match on Thursday, Chicago will send Ryan Dempster opposite Dave Bush…It was the fifth multi-homer game of Byrd’s career and second for Soto.