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Cubs beat Brewers in Nathan's return to majors

MILWAUKEE - Entering his first big league game in 16 months, Joe Nathan felt his heart racing while doing a full sprint to the mound.

Nathan has 377 career saves, and yet Sunday still felt like opening day all over again for the 41-year-old reliever.

Anthony Rizzo's 3-run double in the seventh inning helped the Chicago Cubs overcome a 4-run deficit and made a winner of Nathan in a 6-5 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.

"It was opening day for me today, and the adrenaline was ... through the roof. It was almost too much," Nathan said. "I almost needed a defibrillator for the run into the mound."

The six-time All-Star joined a club with World Series aspirations hoping to shore up its bullpen. The heart of the order finally came up with hits after the Cubs struggled with runners in scoring position against Brewers starter Junior Guerra.

That changed after Will Smith took over for Guerra with 1 out in the seventh.

Tommy La Stella, who went 3-for-3, had an RBI-double before Smith (1-3) walked Kris Bryant to load the bases for third-place hitter Rizzo. He hit a 2-2 slider down in the zone into right-center to clear the bases and give Chicago a 5-4 lead.

Ben Zobrist's RBI-single scored Rizzo in the seventh and gave the Cubs a needed insurance run after closer Hector Rondon gave up a homer to Kirk Nieuwenhuis with 2 outs in the ninth to draw Milwaukee within a run.

Rondon struck out Jake Elmore looking for his 18th save.

"It was a complete victory. Rizzo had a couple tough at-bats but got a really big hit," manager Joe Maddon said.

It completed a successful comeback from Tommy John surgery for Nathan, pitching in his first game in the majors since April 2015. He was activated off the 60-day disabled list earlier Sunday.

Cubs pitchers labored for much of the afternoon, with starter Jon Lester struggling through 4 innings, allowing 4 hits and walking 5.

Nathan gave up a leadoff triple to Jonathan Villar in the sixth and a walk before striking out 3-4-5 hitters Ryan Braun, Jonathan Lucroy and Chris Carter.

"Certainly a lot of moments in the game. We had some opportunities to add on runs in general, just to score runs and we didn't capture those opportunities," Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell said.

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