Lilly shuts down Astros in Cubs' 7-1 victory

While the present-day Cubs were having a big night against the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park, No. 1 draft pick Brett Jackson was having a pretty good evening himself.

The Cubs pounded the Astros 7-1 with lefty Ted Lilly improving his record to 7-4.

As that was happening, the Cubs took center fielder Jackson with the 31st pick of baseball's amateur draft. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Jackson finished his junior season at the University of California-Berkeley by batting .321 with 8 homers, 41 RBI, an on-base percentage of .407 and a slugging percentage of .564.

"I was absolutely shocked," said the 20-year-old Jackson, who added that he spent his 19th birthday at Wrigley Field. "I'm a big Cubs fan. It's a tremendous organization. I'm honored to be with this organization. Honestly and truly, I was hoping to be a Cub the whole time, and I couldn't believe it when my name was read."

The Cubs like Jackson for his tools and athleticism. If there is a knock on him, it's that he needs to make better contact. The left-handed batter struck out 61 times and walked 29 times in 218 at-bats.

"He has quite a few attributes that I like a lot," said scouting director Tim Wilken. "First of all is the ability to play center field. We feel he has an average to above-average throwing arm, and accurate. He's an athletic center fielder. He's a 'plus' runner who has a chance to have some power down the line."

Wilken expressed some concern about the strikeouts.

"Of course, there's always concern," he said. "You can see the numbers. You can read them. There's a little play to his swing. I think there's a pretty unified feeling that he'll be able to calm down his swing a little bit. It's not a long swing. There's just some play to it early. I don't think there's a lot of huge changes we're going to make. His paths to the ball are good."

Against the Astros, the Cubs put themselves on a path to victory in the first inning, when they scored 3 runs on 6 hits against Brian Moehler. Alfonso Soriano led off the game with a double and scored on a one-out double by Kosuke Fukudome.

Derrek Lee and Geovany Soto had RBI singles in the inning.

Cubs starting pitcher Ted Lilly did the rest, breezing through the Houston lineup to improve his ERA of 3.00. Lilly threw a season-high 114 pitches.

About the only downer wast the Cubs stranded 16 runners. Leading that parade was Milton Bradley, who talked himself into the lineup after missing 4 straight starts with a strained right calf.

Bradley went 0-for-6, as his batting average fell to .208. He struck out with a man on in the first, grounded into a bases-loaded double play in the second and left two on in the fourth with a popout. Bradley finished with 2 strikeouts, both with men on base.

In the draft, the Cubs rounded out the first day by taking LSU infielder D.J. LeMahieu in the second round and Oklahoma high school lefty Austin Kirk in the third.