Brian Burres gave Pittsburgh seven shutout innings, his teammates backed him up with plenty of run support and the Pirates matched a season-best with their third consecutive victory in wrapping up a three-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs with an 11-1 win on Thursday.
After losing eight consecutive decisions dating back to 2008, Burres (2-1) has now won his last two starts. He was dominant against Chicago, allowing only three hits and three walks with four strike outs in lowering his ERA from 6.00 to 4.09.
The Pirates staked him to a big lead with five in the first and increased the advantage to 11-0 through four innings. Lastings Milledge had two hits and four RBIs, Garrett Jones had two hits and three RBIs and Ryan Doumit drove in two runs for Pittsburgh.
Cubs starter Randy Wells (3-1) lasted only two innings, by far his shortest outing of the year as he had gone at least six innings in each of his previous five starts. The right-hander surrendered seven runs -- six earned -- on five hits and issued three walks.
The Cubs scored their only run in the eighth on Xavier Nady's RBI double off Javier Lopez, the lone run Pittsburgh's bullpen allowed in the series.
Chi. Cubs | Pittsburgh | |
Randy Wells | Player | Brian Burres |
Loss | W/L | Win |
2.0 | IP | 7.0 |
1 | Strikeouts | 4 |
5 | Hits | 3 |
27.00 | ERA | 0.00 |
Chi. Cubs | Pittsburgh | |
Geovany Soto | Player | Andrew McCutchen |
2 | Hits | 2 |
0 | RBI | 1 |
0 | HR | 0 |
4 | TB | 2 |
.667 | Avg | 1.000 |
Team | Hits | HR | TB | Avg | LOB | K | RBI | BB | SB | Errors |
Chi. Cubs | 6 | 0 | 11 | .182 | 14 | 6 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 3 |
Pittsburgh | 9 | 0 | 13 | .273 | 16 | 2 | 10 | 7 | 0 | 0 |