Two hits. That was Chicago’s whole night.
Jared Jones gave up one hit in seven innings on the South Side on Thursday. Luke Weaver and Mason Montgomery gave up one more between them. The Pittsburgh Pirates won 2-0, swept the three-game series, and left the American League Central leaders looking like a team that has stopped working.
Jones threw 90 pitches, 61 of them for strikes, walked two and struck out eight. Chase Meidroth and Miguel Vargas drew leadoff walks in the third and the fourth. Nothing else happened until Colson Montgomery doubled off the right-field wall with two outs in the seventh, and Jones closed that down by getting Braden Montgomery to line out to left.
Mason Montgomery worked around a leadoff single from Randal Grichuk in the ninth for his 12th save.
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Oneil Cruz did the scoring on his own
Cruz went 3-for-4. He opened the fourth against Erick Fedde with his 18th home run of the year, a ball that left the bat at 117.4 mph and carried 467 feet, the hardest-hit home run anybody has produced this season. He came back in the eighth and singled home Jared Triolo with one out.
That was the entire Pittsburgh offense. Seven hits, two of them from Cruz that mattered, and the rest went nowhere. Nick Gonzales doubled in the sixth and was stranded.
Fedde dropped to 8-9, charged with two runs on four hits over five and a third. Hagen Smith started for Chicago, retired six of the eight men he faced and left in the third.
Two clubs pointed in opposite directions
Chicago sit at 75-71 and have lost six of their last eight. The division lead over an idle Cleveland is down to a game and a half. That is not the September a first-place club plans for.
Pittsburgh are 74-73, above .500 for the first time since July 29, and have just taken their first road sweep of the year. San Diego and the third National League wild card are four and a half games ahead. That is a lot of ground with this much season left, and the Pirates have not been close enough to mention it since midsummer.
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