Steele shaky as Cubs lose against Pirates |
CHICAGO - When the Chicago Cubs (25-20) began their season, there were a lot of question marks surrounding their rotation, but Justin Steele wasn't one of them. The 2023 CY Young finalist put together an amazing season, and many expected him to duplicate that success this season and be the Ace of the Cubs staff.
Less than five innings into his first start, Steele went down with a hamstring injury and was later placed on the IL for over a month. Now that he is back, the Cubs have one of the better 1-2 punches in Steele and Shota Imanga, but it's Steele who is struggling to find his groove at the moment. Coming off one of his worst career starts against the Pittsburgh Pirates (20-25) last time out, Steele had a chance at redemption as the Pirates came to Wrigley Field to open up a four-game series. Paired up against Jared Jones, Steele continued to have a rough go of things as he surrendered five runs in 5 2/3 innings in a 5-4 Pirates win. Steele has also given up five homers in his last two starts, compared to eight all season last year, as the left-hander is searching for answers right now. Given his success last season and coming off a hamstring injury, fans will be patient with the left-hander, who struck out seven, as he is trying to get back in the swing of things. One of Steele's strengths last season was limiting first-inning runs, which helped his team settle in offensively. After the leadoff single from Connor Joe, who touched him up for a three-run shot last time out, the Pirates had a runner on base only to have the following two hitters retired. Looking to escape the first without trouble, Edward Olivares had other plans as he connected for a two-run shot to make things 2-0. Anytime you are as good as Jones is, pitching with the lead makes things easier, as the hard-throwing righty has an ERA of 2.89. That comes after he allowed three runs in six innings on Thursday, and he also struck out seven Cubs compared to just four last time out. After having a few days off for what Craig Counsell called a mental reset, Ian Happ returned to the lineup with a bang as he connected for his second home run of the season and first from the left side to pull the Cubs within 2-1 in the second. Ian Happ smokes one off the foul pole! pic.twitter.com/O3ZBEi5Sth For Happ, seeing the Pirates brings out a different side of him, as he has now reached base in 59 straight games against the Pirates. With Steele starting to settle in on the mound it seemed as if runs would be at a premium most of the night, but it was Nick Gonzalez continuing his hot start to the season with the Buccos second homer of the night to extend the Pirates lead to 3-1. At this point in the game, both offenses started to do the damage as a two-out Michael Busch double in the bottom of the third set the Cubs offense up before Nick Madrigal brought him home with a single to make things 3-2. Madrigal will get much more playing time with Nico Hoerner on the mend and has rewarded Counsell with two nice games in a row. What was starting to look like a back-and-forth affair continued into the fourth, with Micahel A. Taylor leading things off with a double and coming home three batters later on the Bryan Reynolds double to extend the Pirates lead to 4-2. The Cubs answered again in the bottom of the fourth, with Mike Tauchman picking up a one-out single and then racing home on the Cody Bellinger double to make things 4-3. Belli coming in clutch! pic.twitter.com/4C0yS1UFAk Bellinger would reach third on his double, but would be left stranded at third as Jones escaped without further damage. For whatever reason, Steele had a tough time retiring the leadoff hitter, and with Olivares leading off the fifth with a double off the wall, the Pirates offense was in business once again. Steele was on the verge of getting out of the inning only to have Seiya Suzuki miss play a Yasmani Grandal fly ball, which resulted in another run scoring. That run proved costly in the end, as that will go down as the game-winning run. From there, it was a battle of the bullpens, as Hayden Wesneski and Tyson Miller came on to pitch well in their 3 1/3 innings, while Aroldis Chapman took care of the seventh before handing things over to Colin Holderman. Hayden Wesneski, Wicked 84mph Sweeper. 🤢 pic.twitter.com/KI6hNbbuz6 When you look at their series in Pittsburgh last weekend, the Pirates bullpen lost two of those games for the team, so a two-run deficit this late wasn't something to worry about. Hitting Suzuki to lead off the bottom of the eighth wasn't what Holderman was looking for, and neither was a costly two-base error that put the tying run on second and no outs. Christopher Morel managed to pull the Cubs within 5-4 with a sacrifice fly. Unfortunately, that was the final run of the game for the Cubs as Holderman escaped the eighth without any further damage before David Bednar came on to pitch a clean ninth to give the Pirates a 5-4 win.
