It was a winning trip to Chicago for the Pittsburgh Pirates, even if it wasn\u2019t the final record they hoped for.<\/p>\n
The Pirates ended their week in the Windy City with a 4-3 win against the Chicago Cubs at a drizzly Wrigley Field on Sunday afternoon, avoiding a three-game sweep. Brandon Lowe provided the winning hit, a two-run pinch-hit single in the sixth inning.<\/p>\n
Lowe\u2019s teammates were impressed by his swing, coming up big even off the bench.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s really hard to pinch-hit and really hard to pinch-hit in a tight moment against a good pitcher, and he was able to do it,\u201d Nick Gonzales said on SportsNet Pittsburgh\u2019s postgame show.\u00a0\u201c… Really good job by him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bubba Chandler earned the win, allowing three runs, all earned, in 5 1\/3 innings. He gave up five hits, walked four and struck out three batters. He kept the Cubs off the board until the fifth, when Miguel Amaya hit a two-run homer.<\/p>\n
Manager Don Kelly praised his maturity following the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a couple innings where it looked like it was starting to speed up a little bit,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cTo his credit, he found a way to slow it down again, especially in a tough environment here in Wrigley.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chandler left with the bases loaded in the sixth. Carmen Mlodzinski came in mid-inning and induced an RBI groundout then a flyout to preserve the lead.\u00a0Kelly praised Mlodzinski\u2019s heartbeat following the game.<\/p>\n
It led to a familiar situation for the Pirates\u00a0\u2014 a 4-3 lead heading into the eighth inning, just as they had against the Cubs on Saturday.<\/p>\n
This time around, Kelly turned to Luke Weaver\u00a0with two right-handers and a switch hitter due up. Weaver\u00a0threw a 1-2-3 inning, needing just seven pitches. He was aided by a leaping catch from Lowe.<\/p>\n
Mason Montgomery threw a clean ninth inning on seven pitches for his 13th save of the season.<\/p>\n
They went 4-2 on the road trip. They once again have a .500 record with 12 games to go.<\/p>\n
It was over when \u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026 Mlodzinski escaped the jam in the sixth. It proved to be the Cubs\u2019 last and best chance of the game, as the three Pirates relievers did not allow a hit.<\/p>\n
On the mound<\/p>\n
Chandler has been caught by Rafael Flores Jr. lately, but Henry Davis had the assignment on Sunday. The pair leaned heavily on Chandler\u2019s slider, as he threw it 42% of the time\u00a0\u2014 nearly double his usual rate. It didn\u2019t draw many whiffs, but it was good for two of Chandler\u2019s three strikeouts.<\/p>\n
Despite the heavy usage, Chandler wasn\u2019t exactly happy with how the slider performed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re trying a lot of things and we’re trying to make it better, kind of just get it back to what it was a couple months ago when it was good,\u201d Chandler said. \u201cNow other things have gotten better, which is great. But yeah, I think today, the locations with it just [weren\u2019t] great.\u201d<\/p>\n
That led to fewer fastballs. While his velocity was slightly lower than typical, Chandler also hit 100 mph twice on his final at-bat, a walk of Mt. Lebanon\u2019s Ian Happ. He drew just three whiffs on 90 pitches.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything else feels great,\u201d Chandler said. \u201cMoving the ball around how I want to with both fastballs and changeups too. That’s nice, but yeah, got to figure out [the slider].\u201d<\/p>\n
While there were more walks than there have been, it was still another solid outing for Chandler. In 10 starts since the All-Star break, he has a 3.40 ERA. He had a 4.77 ERA in the 19 outings before the break.<\/p>\n
At the plate<\/p>\n
The Pirates didn\u2019t do much after an early run against Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd. They started the game strong, as Konnor Griffin blooped a single, Oneil Cruz walked and Bryan Reynolds singled Griffin home.<\/p>\n
They made the most of their next chance. Reynolds started the sixth inning with a walk before Flores, starting at first, singled. Nick Gonzales doubled into the ivy in right field to score Reynolds, then Lowe hit his two-run single against right-handed reliever Aaron Civale.<\/p>\n
Still, Pirate base-running cost them chances to capitalize further in both innings.<\/p>\n
Cruz was thrown out trying to advance to third on Reynolds\u2019 single in the first, with his slight hesitation capitalized on by Cubs catcher Amaya.\u00a0And in the sixth, Jake Mangum tried to steal third on a 3-1 pitch by Civale but got picked off easily.<\/p>\n
Bucs bites<\/p>\n
\u2014 On his weekly radio show, Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said that the Pirates are \u201cvery optimistic\u201d so far with all they have learned regarding Braxton Ashcraft\u2019s right arm discomfort. While there still is more information left to come, they are currently confident that there is no structural damage.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Additionally, Cherington said Esmerlyn Valdez\u2019s left hamstring strain is season-ending. The injury is somewhere between a Grade 1 or Grade 2 strain.<\/p>\n
\u2014 Right-hander Kirby Yates is dealing with a right shoulder impingement, but he could return during their upcoming nine-game homestand, Cherington said.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
The Pirates are off on Monday before beginning their longest \u2014 and final\u00a0\u2014 homestand of the year. Nine games in Pittsburgh will start on Tuesday at 6:40 p.m. ET with three against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Pirates have not announced who will face Brewers right-hander Jacob Misiorowski on Roberto Clemente Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a winning trip to Chicago for the Pittsburgh Pirates, even if it wasn\u2019t the final record…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":804615,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[12144,5,138,5163,19,4,9708,3838,10,776,64,4297,5059,185,2311,4657],"class_list":["post-804614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-americas","tag-baseball","tag-chicago","tag-illinois","tag-major-league-baseball","tag-mlb","tag-north-america","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pirates","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-pittsburghpirates","tag-professional-sports","tag-sports","tag-team-sports","tag-united-states"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117268284888178905","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804614","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=804614"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804614\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/804615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}