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Pittsburgh Pirates’ Bryan Reynolds (10) celebrates with teammates Marcell Ozuna (24) and Ryan O’ Hearn (29) after hitting a two-run home run during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs in Chicago, Friday, April 10, 2026. (AP Photo\/Paul Beaty)<\/p>\n
CHICAGO \u2014 Bryan Reynolds hit a two-run homer and Carmen Mlodzinski pitched six-hit ball into the sixth inning, helping the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the Chicago Cubs, 2-0, on Friday.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh was shut down by Shota Imanaga before breaking through against Caleb Thielbar in the seventh. Ryan O\u2019Hearn hit a leadoff single for the Pirates\u2019 first hit of the chilly afternoon, and Reynolds drove Thielbar\u2019s next pitch deep to left for his third homer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen somebody is just kinda cutting through your lineup, it\u2019s nice to get him out,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like you\u2019ve got a second wind when you\u2019ve got somebody else in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh won for the seventh time in nine games since its 1-3 start.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a good win tonight,\u201d Pirates manager Don Kelly said. \u201cAny win you can get in Chicago against the Cubs at Wrigley is a special one. You can hear the guys. They\u2019re fired up about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chicago went 0 for 8 with runners in scoring position and left 11 runners on base. Ian Happ had two of the team\u2019s six hits.<\/p>\n
Cubs slugger Seiya Suzuki went 1 for 3 with a fourth-inning single in his first game this season. He had been sidelined by a sprained right knee.<\/p>\n
Imanaga struck out nine and walked one in six innings. The Japanese left-hander threw 68 of 100 pitches for strikes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Imanaga\u2019s rolling like that against us, he\u2019ll end up going seven or eight innings and won\u2019t even get to 100 pitches,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cTo get him to 100 pitches in six innings \u2026 although we didn\u2019t get the hits, I thought we put up a good fight and had decent at-bats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thielbar (1-1) was lifted after Oneil Cruz\u2019s two-out single in the seventh. The 39-year-old lefty pitched 3\u00aa scoreless innings over his first four appearances this year.<\/p>\n
Mason Montgomery (1-0) replaced Mlodzinski with runners on first and second in the sixth. He struck out Pete Crow-Armstrong and walked Carson Kelly before fanning pinch-hitter Matt Shaw for the final out of the inning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think last year was pretty ugly at this time, so (things) probably could only go up, honestly,\u201d Mlodzinski said. \u201cI think I\u2019ve grown as a player. I\u2019ve learned from the mistakes of last year. Doesn\u2019t mean I haven\u2019t made them again this year, honestly, and I haven\u2019t been perfect yet, but I\u2019m definitely in a better spot than last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cubs also left the bases loaded in the fourth when Moises Ballesteros lined to Reynolds in left.<\/p>\n
Isaac Mattson and Gregory Soto each pitched an inning for the Pirates before Dennis Santana handled the ninth for his first save this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was no panic in the dugout,\u201d Reynolds said. \u201cThat\u2019s just kinda how the games go sometimes. Sometimes the starter\u2019s got your number, and when he comes out, whether you say it or not, you probably get a little bit of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pirates rookie Konnor Griffin went 0 for 3 with a strikeout in his first career road game. The 19-year-old shortstop agreed to a nine-year, $140 million contract on Wednesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Pirates’ Bryan Reynolds (10) celebrates with teammates Marcell Ozuna (24) and Ryan O’ Hearn (29) after hitting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[5,4,10,776,64,4297],"class_list":{"0":"post-673064","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-pirates","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-pirates","11":"tag-pittsburgh","12":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","13":"tag-pittsburghpirates"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116384682809085282","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}