A crowd of 40,077 braved the cold, wet conditions at Wrigley this afternoon to watch Ted Lilly pitch a gem of a ball game. Lilly took a no-hitter into the seventh inning before Garrett Atkins singled to left field.
Angel Guzman came in to finish up the seventh, while Aaron Heilman and Kevin Gregg took care of the eighth and ninth innings, respectively.
The Cubs moved into a momentary first place tie with the St. Louis Cardinals, who play later tonight in Arizona.
Lilly's performance was overshadowed this afternoon by Zach Duke's complete game shutout for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Duke's shutout was the third such performance in the last two days by NL Central Division pitchers, following Aaron Harang and Kyle Lohse's shutouts on Sunday.
Lilly gave up just the one hit to Atkins, and he walked two batters while striking out eight on a day that was not conducive to hitters and high scoring baseball.
Cubs manager Lou Piniella, must have been thrilled with Lilly's performance after sub-par outings by Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster.
Piniella also must have enjoyed watching his bullpen have a relatively easy day after a Milwaukee series that featured three straight nail-biters.
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