CHICAGO — Gerrit Cole’s stellar September continued on Tuesday night at Wrigley Field and the Pirates regained the top National League Wild Card spot with four regular-season games remaining.
Cole tossed six strong innings and drove in two runs to lead the Bucs to an 8-2 win over the Cubs that moved them a game ahead of Cincinnati for the first Wild Card, as the Reds lost to the Mets. The Pirates also remained two games behind St. Louis in the NL Central with a Cardinals win over the Nationals.
The right-hander escaped multiple jams, allowing two runs on seven hits, walking one and striking out six.
The Pirates took an early lead in the second on an RBI double by Pedro Alvarez off Cubs starterChris Rusin, and a two-run single by Cole to make it 3-0.
Jordy Mercer hit his seventh home run of the season in the third to make it a 4-0 game.
With the bases loaded in the fifth, Alvarez doubled off reliever Chang-Yong Lim on a ground ball past third base — against Chicago’s defensive shift — driving in two more to make it 6-1.
The Bucs tacked on two more in the eighth on an RBI double by Starling Marte and an Andrew McCutchen RBI single.
Chicago threatened in the second with runners at the corners and one out, but Cole got Brian Bogusevic to ground into an inning-ending double play.
The Cubs scored a run in the fourth on a Starlin Castro RBI single.
Cole was in trouble in the sixth after back-to-back singles by Ryan Sweeney and Castro, followed by a Junior Lake walk that loaded the bases with nobody out. Anthony Rizzo hit a grounder to short, but Mercer couldn’t get a clean handle out of his glove and threw to second too late to get the force as a run scored.
But Cole struck out Dioner Navarro and pinch-hitter Luis Valbuena, and got Donnie Murphy to fly out to end the threat.
Cole is 4-0 in September with a 1.69 ERA (six earned runs in 32 innings pitched). With his 10th win of the season he became the first Pirates rookie to have at least 10 wins since Josh Fogg won 12 in 2002.
The Pirates’ 12 wins against the Cubs this season are the most since the Bucs went 14-4 against Chicago in 1990.
Article by Manny Randhawa
