Cubs Charge Out of the Gate, Leave Bucs in the Dust 10-4

K-Man led off with a rap against Jon Lester; he went nowhere. Jordan Lyles walked the first Cubby. He walked another with an out, and a soft, well-placed roller to left made it 1-0. A 2-2 curve to Wilson Contreras was banged it into the seats to put the Bucs in a big hole. That was followed by a two-bagger and a third walk. With two outs, Lester brought them both home with a shot to left (it should have been a double to the wall, but Jon wasn't into running much) and then another walk was issued, bringing in Chris Stratton. He gave up a double to run the tally board to 7-0 before he finished up. We'll spare most of the remaining gory details and go to fast forward: Lester homered in the third and Addison Russell's single chased home two more Baby Bruins in the fourth. The Bucs got off the schneid when Kang klocked a solo shot to make it 10-1 in the fifth.

Starling's been flexing in Wrigley - photo Dave Arrigo/Pirates

Luis Escobar made his debut in the Cub half and put up a zero, tho touched for a couple of knocks. Starling knocked one out of Wrigley in the sixth, and young Luis continued livin' the dream - he gave up two more hits, but a GIDP carried him out of trouble. The Bucs strung together a couple of singles followed by a pair of bouncers to plate a third run in the seventh. Another rap put the fork in Lester and Brandon Kintzler got the third out. Clay Holmes got his call and put the Cubs in hibernation. Starling went bye-bye again in the eighth against Randy Rosario. An error, walk and passed ball were overcome by Clay in his half. Rosario got the first out in the ninth, then Maddon sent Steve Cishek in to prolong matters. He didn't take long to close it out; a single followed by a DP, using just four pitches.

Notes:

• Five different Bucs had a pair of hits - K-Man, Starling, J-Bell, Joey O and JHK. The Pirates banged out 11 hits today.
• Jordan Lyles has given up 33 earned runs in his last seven starts, covering 29-2/3 IP (10.01 ERA). You have to wonder if he came back from his hammy injury too soon and perhaps changed his mechanics a bit to compensate.
• The Pirates walked six Cubbies; four scored.
• Starling hit a career-high 20 long balls last year, and he's got 15 now. He's a week of ahead of last year's pace (#15 - 7/22), which was short-circuited when he only hit one August homer. It was his 100th home run as a Bucco. He also became the second player in Pirates history to hit at least 100 home runs and steal at least 200 bases (Barry Bonds, 176 HR/251 SB, 1986-92; Marte 100/227, 2012-19).
• For those who hang their hat on K rate, here's a fun fact: The Pirate pitchers struck out the side in the first and gave up seven runs. Yah, completely out of context, but still...
• The Phils placed S-Rod on the 10-day IL with a right abdominal strain. After a hot start, he had cooled down to a .224 BA.