Schwarber continues surge, Cubs beat Giants 7

The Giants recalled left-hander Josh Osich from Triple-A Sacramento before Friday’s game to take Leake’s roster spot.

The Cubs held on to a 5-4 win against the Giants on Thursday and will look to make it two in a row vs. San Francisco today at 4:05PM ET. They moved 12 games over.

The Cubs, playing meaningful baseball in August for the first time in years, won for the seventh time in eight games.

Manager Joe Maddon wanted to keep going with the scorching Schwarber.

“It’s a nice compliment”, he said.

The Cubs lead the Giants 6-1 after a five-run fifth inning.

Jon Lester pitched seven strong innings, Kyle Schwarber had a pair of hits and two RBIs and a crowd of 41,311 reveled in a playoff-like atmosphere it’s beginning to get accustomed to. He walked two and struck out three after finishing with a season-high 14 Ks against Colorado last week.

Cubs right-handed reliever Tommy Hunter entered in the eighth and was greeted by left fielder Nori Aoki’s pinch-hit solo home run that cut the Cubs lead to 6-3. Rondon came in with a runner on second and retired the final two batters before working the ninth for his second save in as many games. “Just the first couple of innings I just had trouble finding the strike zone with both the breaking ball and the fastball”. With the score tied 1-1 in the fifth, he went directly to Jeremy Affeldt after Russell singled to start the inning and Dexter Fowler doubled in a seven-pitch at-bat. Coghlan then brought him in with a sharp single off second baseman Kelby Tomlinson’s glove. Overall Lester is 6-8 with a 3.26 ERA, somewhat disappointing numbers for the Cubs’ big free agent acquisition.

It was a costly mistake because Kris Bryant drew a two-out walk and Jorge Soler followed with a two-run double off Yusmeiro Petit.

Starlin Castro no longer appears to be the Chicago Cubs’ undisputed everyday shortstop.

“You can go through each guy and find something really good that happened”, Maddon said.

Bochy called the atmosphere at Wrigley Field for this series “great”, although he did object to one thing – the loud pre-game music from the new videoboard in left field.

Giants: RHP Mike Leake will miss a turn in the rotation because of a strained left hamstring.

The Giants acquired Leake from the Cincinnati Reds before the trade deadline on July 31 for two minor leaguers in order to bolster their rotation, which was especially needed after a struggling Tim Hudson hit the 15-day disabled list a day after they made the deal.

The win was the eighth in nine games for the Cubs (60-48) and second straight in the showdown series between National League wild card contenders.