Ian Happ hit a three-run drive for his first homer in over a month and had four RBIs, while Jameson Taillon lasted a season-high six innings for his first home victory as the host Chicago Cubs rolled over the Pittsburgh Pirates 11-3 on a rainy Tuesday night.
Happ erased a 1-0 Pittsburgh lead in the first inning with a shot into the right field seats off Luis L. Ortiz (1-3). It was the first homer since May 5 for Happ, who earned another RBI after being hit by a pitch from Yohan Ramirez with the bases loaded during Chicago’s four-run seventh.
Happ, however, appeared to injure his leg and left after the seventh inning.
Meanwhile, Taillon (2-4), who entered 0-2 with an 8.27 ERA in four home starts, yielded a pair of solo homers to Jack Suwinski, plus one other run and six total hits during his longest outing of the season. The Cubs also got an eighth-inning, three-run homer from Christopher Morel as they won for the third time in four games.
Ortiz was charged with four runs and also allowed six hits over 5 1/3 innings for the Pirates, who lead the National League Central but are 2-4 since winning six straight.
Suwinski, a Chicago native, got the Pirates on the board in the first with a two-out homer into the right-center-field bleachers. It was his 14th homer of the season and his fourth in four games.
However, the Cubs got that run back, and then some, in the bottom of the frame. Ortiz issued an inning-opening walk to Mike Tauchman (two hits) and an infield single to Nico Hoerner before Happ’s homer.
Pittsburgh cut that deficit to one in the second when Josh Palacios blooped a double into left field and scored on Ji Hwan Bae’s two-out single. The Pirates tied it on Suwinski’s towering drive just inside the right field foul pole in the sixth.
Chicago’s Matt Mervis delivered a tiebreaking RBI single in the bottom of the sixth, and the Cubs broke things open in the seventh, highlighted by Yan Gomes’ two-run single.
–Field Level Media
