Bonus time! Brewers fall to Braves in game one

The Brewers couldn't gain any ground on the Cubs idle day and now the Brewers will face two of the best pitchers in the business.

I hear Bob Uecker's voice in my head, "The Milwaukee Brewers are in trouble folks." They traveled to Atlanta on Thursday to face the 'almost out of it' Atlanta Braves and a rookie pitcher making his first Major League Start. Jeff Bennett was called up from Triple-A Richmond to make a start for a tiring Braves team. He last pitched in the majors in 2004 for you guessed it, the Milwaukee Brewers. He's been in the minor leagues ever since trying to rehab major surgery on his throwing elbow. He threw a gem of a game only allowing one run (Ricky Weeks goes yard for the third game in a row) on 6 hits, and 8 strikeouts. Jeff Suppan, who hadn't lost since August 17th, gave up 3 runs on 6 six hits. He takes the loss and now the Brewers try to make up ground on the Chicago Cubs by going against Tim Hudson and John Smoltz in the last two games of the series. Good luck with that!

The Cubs finish their final homestand against the Pirates. The first game is on Friday and pits Jason Marquis (12-8 4.07 ERA) versus Paul Maholm (10-15 4.76ERA). The odd thing about this matchup, and the Pirates have been playing good baseball as of late, is that the Pirates reworked their rotation so two out of the three games the Cubs will be going against left handers...ouch! The Cubs have really been doing better lately but after Maholm the Cubs then face Zack Duke.

I'm Clay Koenig and Cubs have nine games left (they are 1 1/2 games up on the Brewers).