MILWAUKEE _ In the span of only five starts, Brent Suter has transformed himself from a short-term injury replacement in the Milwaukee Brewers' rotation into someone who merits a longer look.
The left-hander delivered the performance of his short career on Friday night, throwing seven shutout innings to highlight an entertaining and hard-fought, 2-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Miller Park.
Suter (2-1) handcuffed a potent Cubs offense to the tune of four hits and one walk to go along with five strikeouts as the Brewers successfully turned the page on a forgettable 2-8 road trip by edging their rivals in front of a sellout crowd of 42,574.
There was no flurry of offense in this one for the Brewers, who put up 11 runs in pasting the Cubs in the teams' last meeting at Wrigley Field on July 6.
The Brewers scored a run in both the second and fourth innings on RBI groundouts while going 0 for 9 with runners in scoring position and not having a runner reach base from the fifth inning on.
The victory also helped shave a game off the Cubs' lead in the National League Central, leaving the Brewers just { game back heading into Game 2 of the series Saturday.
Suter entered the game having gone 1-0 with a 1.96 earned-run average in four starts since replacing the injured Chase Anderson.
He needed only 20 pitches to dispatch the Cubs in the first two innings, then a nifty 5-4-3 double play started by Travis Shaw helped Suter work around three third-inning singles.
The Brewers took a 1-0 lead in the second against left-hander Jose Quintana, the starter who had reportedly been considered as a trade possibility by the team before the Cubs swooped in on July 13 and acquired him from the Chicago White Sox in exchange for a package of prospects.
Jesus Aguilar led off with a single, Hernan Perez doubled him over to third and Manny Pina drove him in with a ground-ball out.
Milwaukee played station-to-station baseball again in the fourth and loaded the bases with nobody out after Perez and Pina opened with singles and Lewis Brinson walked. Another RBI groundout, this one by Orlando Arcia, made it 2-0.
Suter struck out and Domingo Santana walked to again load the bases with two outs, but Ryan Braun popped out to shallow center. Adding to Braun's frustration was Jason Heyward's leaping grab at the wall in right in the third that robbed him of a two-run homer in his previous at-bat.
Suter rolled through the fourth and fifth, with the Cubs seeing him the third time through the order beginning in the sixth _ a trouble spot for him in past starts. Manager Craig Counsell stuck with Suter, though, and was ultimately rewarded for his patience with seven scoreless innings.
Suter pitched a 1-2-3 sixth, then after issuing a leadoff walk to Willson Contreras in the seventh got another big double-play grounder _ this one of the 4-6-3 variety _ to quickly erase him. One pitch later Heyward flew out to right, and Suter's night was done after 82 pitches.
Anthony Swarzak, acquired from the White Sox on Wednesday, made his Brewers debut in relief of Suter and was greeted by a long flyout to the warning track in right by Addison Russell.
He breathed a sigh of relief but only momentarily as on the very next pitch, Javier Baez launched a long homer to break up the shutout and pull the Cubs to within 2-1.
Shaw helped Swarzak out with a tremendous grab on a Ben Zobrist foul popup, reaching over the railing and fully extending into the Chicago dugout to haul the ball in for the second out.
Swarzak then walked Jon Jay, but Kris Bryant grounded out weakly to first to end the threat.
Corey Knebel started the ninth by walking Anthony Rizzo, who eventually advanced all the way to third. But Knebel sandwiched a pair of strikeouts around a tapper back to the mound by Heyward to register his 18th save of the season.
