The 95th Wrigley Field Opening Day ever, got the sellout crowd into a better mood than the one they showed up with. The Cub bats which were mostly silent on the 2-4 season opening road trip,woke up against Doug Davis and the Brewers. A quiet and scoreless first two and a half innings was abruptly broken open in the Cub third when with two gone and Marlon Byrd and Derrek Lee on base via singles when Xavier Nady belted his first homer as a Cub into the LF Bleachers to make it 3-0,but that wasn’t all. Alfonso Soriano,who was greeted with boos in pre game introductions, lined a clean single and Jeff Baker slammed his first round tripper of the year to finish off the five run rally. The Brewers got on the board in the top of the fourth when Prince Fielder lined a double into the RF corner,took third on a bloop double to right by former Cub Casey McGehee,and scored on Corey Harts single.But Ryan Dempster got Gregg Zaun to bounce into a 4-6-3 double play to minimize the damage. Davis,who has done well at Wrigley in the past,was chased in the bottom of the fourth after walking Ryan Theriot who greeted Claudio Vargas with a stolen base,and he scored with two away on a sharp single by Lee.Aramis Ramirez then belted his second dinger of the season to deep left center to up the Cub lead to 8-1. Lee left the game with inflammation of his right thumb prior to the Milwaukee 5th in which the Crew tried to get back into the game. With two on, Ryan Braun lifted his second homer of the season to close the Cubs lead to 8-4. With Chris Narveson on the mound in the Cub 5th, Geovany Soto reached on SS Alcides Escobar’s throwing error, and scored on a two out double into the LF corner by Byrd which was his third hit of the day.The Brewers closed the scoring with a run in the top of the 7th. Dempster(1-0) worked 6.1 innings with James Russell, Jeff Samardzija,and Carlos Marmol finished the job.

NOTES—Attendance was 41,306…..The Ricketts Family sang Take Me Out To The Ballgame during the 7th inning stretch…..Tuesday is an off day, the series resumes Wednesday.

LES