The Cubs can continue to have considerable influence over the NL Central race the next two days. Milwaukee's magic number remains at four; with a 5.5 game lead over the Cardinals it would seem to be just a matter of time. But you never know. The Cardinals have games at home against the Mets this week. The Cubs have won four of the five games played between them and the Brewers at Wrigley Field so far this year.

The pitching matchup tonight is a bit more even, on paper at least, than last night's was. And yet, the Cubs won Monday night anyway. I don't have a whole lot more to say about this game, except that you can go to it for free. Well, almost free:

Cubs lineup:

Castro SS, Barney 2B, Ramirez 3B, Peña 1B, LaHair RF, Soriano LF, Byrd CF, Soto C, Wells P

Brewers lineup:

Hart RF, Morgan CF, Braun LF, Fielder 1B, Weeks 2B, McGehee 3B, Betancourt SS, Lucroy C, Marcum P

Today's Starting Pitchers

Randy Wells Cubs vs. Shaun Marcum Brewers 7-4 W-L 12-7 4.93 ERA 3.40 77 SO 149 42 BB 54 21 HR 20 vs. Mil -- vs. Cubs

Randy Wells and Shaun Marcum matched up on July 28 at Miller Park. Wells pitched pretty well, although he gave up a long home run to Ryan Braun. Marcum pitched better and the Brewers won. That is Marcum's only career start vs. the Cubs.

Braun, in fact, is Wells' particular nemesis. Braun is 10-for-24 (.417) against Wells with that home run, and two doubles. Overall, current Brewers are 49-for-147 against Wells (.333). Two other Brewers have homered off Randy: Casey McGehee and Prince Fielder.

Today's game is on CSN Chicago and FSN Wisconsin. Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday

Baseball-reference.com game preview

SB Nation game preview

Please visit our SB Nation Brewers site Brew Crew Ball. As always, be careful over there.

Today's first pitch thread will be up at 7:05 p.m. CDT and the overflow threads will post at 8 pm, 9 pm and 9:45 pm CDT. If you need more overflows due to extra innings or rain delays, post them in the fanshot section.

Discuss amongst yourselves.