Willson Contreras homered twice and Adrian Sampson threw 5 2/3 shutout innings to lift the Chicago Cubs to a 3-2 victory over the host Baltimore Orioles in Thursday's makeup game.
Rafael Ortega belted a pinch-hit home run in the eighth inning.
Sampson (1-3) avenged one of his losses from last month by limiting the Orioles to four hits and two walks while striking out six.
Cubs reliever Sean Newcomb was unscathed for 1 1/3 inning before walking the first two Orioles batters of the eighth. Erich Uelmen took the mound and gave up Ryan Mountcastle's RBI single. Anthony Santander followed with a sacrifice fly to cut the gap to 3-2.
It stayed that way when Mountcastle was thrown out at home trying to score on Ramon Urias' grounder for the second out of the inning.
With an error and a Jorge Mateo single, the Orioles put two runners on base with one out in the ninth against Brandon Hughes. Cedric Mullins lined into a double play to end the game as Hughes, a rookie, recorded his first career save.
Baltimore starter Spenser Watkins was stellar for 5 2/3 innings other than issuing Contreras' first long ball. Watkins (4-3) allowed five hits and didn't issue a walk.
The Cubs, who lost the three previous meetings with the Orioles by a combined score of 20-6, made a one-game stop in Baltimore to finish the season series.
Contreras homered to right in the sixth inning for the game's first run.
Ortega's homer stretched the lead to 2-0. Two batters later, Contreras went deep for the second time of the game and for the 19th time this season.
Contreras had a total of three home runs in his past 19 games played since July 23.
Chicago's Franmil Reyes went 2-for-4 to stretch his hitting streak to all eight games since joining the team. Ian Happ also had two hits for the Cubs.
No Baltimore player had more than one hit.
--Field Level Media
Chi. Cubs | Baltimore | |
Adrian Sampson | Player | Spenser Watkins |
Win | W/L | Loss |
5.2 | IP | 5.2 |
6 | Strikeouts | 2 |
4 | Hits | 5 |
0.00 | ERA | 1.59 |
Chi. Cubs | Baltimore | |
Willson Contreras | Player | Ryan Mountcastle |
2 | Hits | 1 |
2 | RBI | 1 |
2 | HR | 0 |
8 | TB | 1 |
.500 | Avg | .333 |