The Chicago Cubs won a laugher over the Washington Nationals on Saturday afternoon, by a score of 9-2. Aramis Ramirez homered twice, and Ryan Dempster threw 7.1 innings of one run baseball en route to the victory.

The losing pitcher in this one was Odalis Perez. Perez, a non-roster invite to the Nationals camp this spring training, got shelled in his 4.1 innings of work. He allowed ten hits and five runs (four of which earned), while walking four. Things didn’t get much better for Washington after Perez took his exit. Garret Mock came on to do the pitching, and allowed a Mark DeRosa home run to widen the Cubs lead to 6-0. After Mock, recent call-up Marco Estrada entered to give up three earned runs in his two innings of work. In total, it was another badly pitched game for a team simply playing out the season.

The Chicago Cubs, on the other hand, pounced on the opportunity to improve their lead in the NL Central division. With the victory, the Cubs currently lead the Milwaukee Brewers by 4.5 games. The Brewers can reduce that total to four games, when they take on the Pittsburgh Pirates later on tonight.