The Pirates led late, but Jason Grilli gave up a two-out, two-run homer to Anthony Rizzo to give the Cubs a 5 – 4 victory in Pittsburgh on Friday night.
The Cubs jumped out to an early lead against Charlie Morton when Nate Schierholtz turned a lead-off walk in the second into the games first run, a fielders choice by Darwin Barney as he beat out a double play.
They would add two more in the fourth inning when Brian Bogusevic hit a two-out, two-run homer into the bushes to push the Cubs lead to 3 – 0. Morton would only last one more inning as he was unable to locate his sinker allowing the Cubs to hit ten fly balls, a higher number than his average totals. “I just felt like they were putting good swings on the ball to be honest with you. I don’t think it was wind-assisted at all, I think they were just hitting the ball , they just squared it up.”
The Pirates would tie things up in a unique way in the bottom of the fourth. With two out, Pedro Alvarez hit a ball off of the top of the right-center field wall. The ball then skipped away from Ryan Sweeny allowing Alvarez to score the inside-the-park home run. Russell Martin would add on with a homer to the left field loonies on the next pitch to cut the lead to one. Garrett Jones would top things off two pitches later with a homer for himself, a shot to the center field seats to complete the back-to-back-to-back jacks and tie things at three. “You know, you don’t see it all the time, when you do, it usually happens in a hurry and balls were up and elevated and our guys put good swings on them,” said manager, Clint Hurdle.
They would take the lead in the sixth when Andrew McCutchen doubled to lead-off the inning. Alvarez came up two batters later and hit a soft grounder to first, but hustled to make the play close causing the Cubs to botch the throw allowing Pedro to be safe. Cutch, who saw the play unfold, cruised around to score on the play.
Jason Grilli started the top half of the seventh off with back-to-back strikeouts and appeared to get Luis Valbuena on a 2 – 2 pitch, but it was called a ball and he would be walked. Grilli would get to two strikes again on Anthony Rizzo, but Rizzo would take a decent slider by Grilli and deposit it into the river for a Cubs lead and the final margin.
Final Score: Cubs 5, Pirates 4
After the game, the Pirate clubhouse was clearly in shock at what had just occurred. A tough loss in a pennant race. The Reds did lose allowing Pittsburgh to remain two games up for the first Wild Card spot and home field in the play-in game.
Starter’s Lines
Morton (ND): 5 IN, 4 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 2 BB, 5 K’s, 1 HR. 93 Pitches (58 Strikes)
Arrieta: (ND) 5+ IN, 6 H, 4 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 6 K’s, 3 HR. 85 Pitches (60 Strikes)
Game three of the four-game set will be tomorrow at 7:05.
Tomorrow’s Starters
(RHP) Gerrit Cole (PIT): 7 – 7, 3.48 ERA
(RHP) Scott Baker (CHI): 0 – 0, 0.00 ERA
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(Photo Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports)
