Chicago Cubs Fall To The Pittsburgh Pirates, Winning Streak Ends

Polanco and Andrew McCutchen homered and the Pirates beat Chicago 7-5 on Wednesday night, ending the Cubs’ season-best six-game winning streak. Obviously it’s easy to get caught up in the moment in a competitive situation, but that’s generally a good idea.

The first delay, which lasted 2 hours, 9 minutes, knocked both starters out of the game. He induced pinch hitter Chris Coghlan to ground out on the first pitch with the bases loaded to end the sixth and protect Pittsburgh’s 6-4 lead.

However, Hurdle said he is cognizant that Liriano missed his scheduled start July 19 at Milwaukee because of a sore neck. He pitched deep in counts, elevating his pitch count early, and left balls up and over the plate often. Anthony Rizzo hit an RBI single for the Cubs.

“I was just being conscious of not giving them much to hit”, Arrieta said. After experiencing an unexpected sweep by a streaking Phillies team, taking two of three from Colorado and sweeping the offensively challenged Brewers, Chicago will test their rookies in what should be an exciting three game set in Pittsburgh before returning home to entertain the Giants for four games.

This is the first time since 2008 that the Cubs have been in a pennant race.

In his last nine starts, Arrieta is 6-1 with a 1.38 ERA.

“He’s a very special player”, Locke said of McCutchen. “We couldn’t get the barrel on it outside of Marte and McCutchen in the middle”. “It was nice for (manager) Joe (Maddon) to let me go out for the eighth, especially for a one-run game”.

The Cubs tied the game at 4 in the top of the sixth when Schwarber hit a two-run home run, his fifth, and Rizzo added a solo blast, his 21st, to chase Pittsburgh left-hander Jeff Locke.

Chicago drew within three games of the National League wild card-leading Pirates (61-44), who remained 5 1-2 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals in the NL Central.

The Cubs made it 3-0 in the third when first baseman Anthony Rizzo hit a double and scored on Castro’s double before catcher David Ross capped the inning with an RBI single.

Castro greeted reliever Jared Hughes with his second run-scoring double in the fifth.

Cubs: LHP Tsuyoshi Wada (left deltoid inflammation) was activated from the 15-day DL and was optioned to Triple-A Iowa, where he was on a rehab assignment…. However, the Pirates would answer with two runs in the bottom of the inning, which would be all the runs they would need.

For example, Cubs left-hander Jon Lester worked just 1 2/3 innings Monday and will come back and pitch Friday against the San Francisco Giants on three days of rest. RHP Dan Haren will take Richard’s spot in the rotation Wednesday night against the Pirates after being acquired last Friday from Miami in a trade.

Lester went seven innings while allowing one run – a homer to Sean Rodriguez – and striking out seven in a 4-1 win over the Pirates on May 16.