NEWSLETTER
The Cubs are on a roll! They haven’t been facing particularly good lineups, but man, Cubs pitching has been fantastic lately. Beating up on bad teams is just the start, right?
Hayden Wesneski was maybe a touch less precise with his pitches tonight than he was over the weekend against the Rockies, but you could see the nasty stuff again. That slider is just brutal.
The big moment, of course, was the 5th inning, when Wesneski went strike, strike, strike, strike, strike, strike, strike, strike, strike to record three strikeouts. That’s an immaculate inning, and it was the Cubs’ first in nearly 20 years.
Brandon Hughes was a little wild in his brief appearance, so again I say, maybe it’s time to start thinking about winding him down for the year. It’s a LOT of innings at this point.
Mark Leiter Jr. was solid in another multi-inning appearance to close things down. The Pirates did manage to get the tying run to third base in the bottom of the 9th (HBP, wild pitch, stolen base), but Rodolfo Castro lined out to center field to end it.
Christopher Morel drove in two runs early with a double, Michael Hermosillo drove in another as part of his two-hit night, and David Bote stayed hot. It wasn’t a lot, but it was juuuust enough.
