No power? No problem: Cubs sweep Pirates behind Marquis

PITTSBURGH - No power? No problem.

The Cubs found another, and much neater, way to win a ballgame on a sleepy Wednesday at PNC Park.

After playing for nearly four hours Tuesday night and winning 14-9 in spite of themselves, the Cubs went all small-ball on the Pirates on Wednesday in a snappy 2-0 victory that took just 2 hours, 17 minutes.

All of the scoring came in the seventh inning after Reed Johnson led off with a bunt single. Ronny Cedeno's RBI groundout and Henry Blanco's successful suicide squeeze caught the bleary-eyed Bucs napping and allowed the Cubs to leave town with a three-game sweep.

"I think that's a sign of a good team that can win in different ways," said Johnson, who started in center field against Pirates lefty Zach Duke. "We've been able to win the last couple of weeks here by just sitting back and swinging the bat. Today, we just weren't swinging the bat very well, so we were able to play a little bit different game, and it ended up working out well for us."

With the victory, the Cubs finished this stretch of nine games against Cincinnati, Washington and Pittsburgh with a record of 7-2. After playing poorly on the road for the first half of the season, they've won 13 of 14 away from Wrigley Field and have an overall road record of 34-31.

Overall, the first-place Cubs are 83-50, putting them 33 games over .500 for the first time since the pennant-winning season of 1945.

"All these teams that you play, every team that you play at the end of the year, present a challenge," manager Lou Piniella said. "You've got to be ready to play. And you can't take anything for granted. And we played 7-2 ball. We'll take that every time. Put it that way."

Piniella pointed to poor execution for his team's road woes earlier this year. There was none of that Wednesday, either from the small-ball attack or from pitcher Jason Marquis, who worked 7 solid innings.

"We've picked it up," Piniella said. "I thought that we would. I said that all along. But yeah, this was a very well-played game, basically on both sides, in contrast to last night."

Neither team did anything early. Marquis wound up with 11 groundball outs as he improved to 9-7.

"I felt that same way against Washington," Marquis said of a 13-5 loss last Friday. "I just lost it that one inning. I tried to keep that same approach coming into Pittsburgh - try to work quick, get groundballs and let my defense help me out."

Johnson got things going in the seventh, when he caught third baseman Andy LaRoche playing back and laid down a leadoff bunt single.

"I saw that he was back, and usually in a 2-0 situation, I was going to hit," Johnson said. "I didn't get pitch that I liked so I kind of glanced at him on the 2-1 pitch, and he was in the same spot, and he wasn't moving. So I decided it was a good opportunity to get on base, especially leading off the inning there."

Mark DeRosa doubled to left, moving Johnson to third. Johnson then read the play on Cedeno's groundout to third and scampered home. Blanco put down the suicide squeeze.

"It was like a perfect situation," Blanco said. "We hadn't scored a run all day long, and we had a situation where we could squeeze him. We've got a great offense, but we can do the little things to win ballgames. That's what we did today."

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