Tauchman delivers in rain as Cubs roll past Pirates
In the top of the second inning, a sudden rainstorm engulfed Pittsburgh's PNC Park. Perhaps knowing it wasn't supposed to last long, umpires allowed play to continue.
Whether a heavy rain is more bothersome to the pitcher or hitter is open to debate. But in this case, Pirates rookie Osvaldo Bido walked Miles Mastrobuoni to load the bases, then went 3-0 on Mike Tauchman.
With the rain falling hard, Tauchman took a strike, then sent a 2-run single to center field and the Cubs never looked back, beating the Pirates 8-0 on Monday. After sweeping Pittsburgh last week at Wrigley Field, the Cubs are now 6-1 in their last seven games, while the Pirates have dropped seven in a row.
"I definitely got the better half of the rain," Cubs starter Drew Smyly said. "It look pretty heavy for a little bit. The mound was muddy. It was sticky and muggy and humid out, but you just have to play through it and try to grind it out."
The rain stopped by the time Smyly returned to the mound in the bottom of the inning. The Cubs tacked on 5 more runs in the seventh and eighth innings to pull away.
Tauchman finished the night 3-for-5 with 3 RBI. Nico Hoerner added a pair of RBI and Dansby Swanson collected 2 hits, but the offensive storyline was the same as it was all weekend, the way Tauchman has sparked the Cubs from the leadoff spot in the order. The Palatine native is now hitting .387 as the leadoff man.
"You start with Tauchman, nice night for him," Cubs manager David Ross said. "Two-out RBI, really nice job staying big part of the field. Getting us started early on, his presence has really meant a lot. I think it just sets a lot of other guys up fro success. Nico in the two (spot in the order) has fit really well as well."
One unfortunate occurrence was an error by Swanson in the seventh inning. Over the weekend, Swanson tied Don Kessinger for the second-longest errorless streak by a Cubs shortstop. The error happened when the Cubs had a runner hung up between second and third and Swanson made an errant throw to third base.
A theme for Smyly was how he used his cutter more than usual to supplement his fastball and knuckle curve. Smyly allowed just 3 hits in 5 innings, but had 5 walks.
"I thought my cutter tonight was the best it's been all season," he said. "That was kind of the game plan going in, to use that and see where their hitters were at. You could tell right away they were swinging right over it and there were a lot of swing and misses.
"I think that opened up the whole plate and kept them in-between. They weren't hitting the ball hard. But at the same time, I was so erratic and getting myself in trouble."
Smyly thought using the cutter so much might have thrown off his routine with the curve and caused him to miss the plate more than usual.
Another factor is Smyly faced the Pirates just last week in Wrigley. Bido had an even more difficult task, since he made his major league debut against the Cubs last week and had to face them again.
"It kind of felt like they were ambushing me, they were crazy aggressive," Smyly said of his last outing against the Pirates. "They got to me pretty good. Tonight I felt like I needed to flip the script and I just started attacking them way more with fastballs in and cutters.
"I'm glad it stopped raining, but it was a tough inning for them. It was crazy humid out today, the most humid I'd pitched in this season, so I think I was trying to do too much, working a little extra, just trying to catch my breath."
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