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If National League teams want to sic their left-handed hitters on Cubs righty Jon Lieber, he has three words: Bring 'em on.
Lieber took on a lineup of lefties and gutted out 7 tough innings Thursday at Coors Field as he pitched the Cubs to a much-needed 7-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies.
The Cubs snapped a three-game losing streak and improved to 13-8, keeping them atop the National League Central.
Lieber gave up 7 hits and 2 runs. Most important, he held dangerous left-handed hitters Larry Walker and Todd Helton to a combined 1-for-7. Coming into this year, lefty batters were hitting .308 against Lieber.
"I've heard it all before," said Lieber who is 2-1 with a 2.92 ERA. "Forget about it. If they want to stack them one through nine with lefties, that's fine. I'm sure they're going by numbers. But I'm not going to change my game plan."
Thursday's game plan was simple: stay away from the lefties. Lieber did that mainly with fastballs.
"Stay away from down-and-in, because all their left-handed hitters are pulling the ball real well right now," said catcher Todd Hundley. "We just went fastballs away, off the plate and get them to chase it. They kept going with it. It was good."
Hundley, who has hit off Lieber in the past, says he has seen progress against left-handed hitters.
"The problem with him is that his fastball has a natural cut to it," Hundley said. "Yeah, the first inning started with that. Later in the game, he kept the ball straight. It stayed out there instead of coming back over the plate."
Lieber left a pair of Rockies runners stranded in the first. The Cubs put a run across in the second on an RBI single by Augie Ojeda, who started at shortstop to give Ricky Gutierrez a rest.
The Rockies scored single runs in the second and third, but Lieber helped minimize the damage - always a plus at hitter-friendly Coors Field - by stranding a runner in each inning. Lieber wound up throwing 118 pitches over his 7 innings, stranding nine of the 10 men the Rockies put on base.
"It's tougher in this ballpark because Jon Lieber is a strike thrower, and he was almost 120 pitches," manager Don Baylor said. "You maximize every pitch."
The Cubs, who hit only 1 homer in this three-game series, went ahead for good with a 5-run fifth inning, when they sent 10 men to the plate.
Ojeda opened with his second single and was safe at second when Lieber bunted. Rockies pitcher Brian Bohanon (0-3) tried to get Ojeda but threw high to second. Eric Young then blooped a single to left, and Ojeda read it well to score from second.
"If we were in a golf tournament today, we would have had closest-to-the-pin," Baylor said.
"I got a pretty good read on it," Ojeda said. "I saw (left fielder Todd) Hollandsworth playing pretty deep. The only guy who could catch the ball was the third baseman. Once he started sprinting back, I took off."
Gary Matthews Jr. then contributed a 2-run triple to left-center. The Cubs picked up additional runs that inning on Rondell White's single and an error by third baseman Terry Shumpert on a ball hit by Julio Zuleta.
Lieber later got relief help from Felix Heredia and Jeff Fassero. The victory gave the Cubs a 3-3 record on the road trip heading into San Francisco tonight.
"It's huge because I know yesterday was tough, losing that ballgame," Lieber said of a 6-5 loss. "This is a huge lift for us going into San Francisco. You'd like to take at least two out of three here. Unfortunately, we didn't do that, but we played some close ballgames."