*Photo from the Chicago Sun Times*
This pitcher has the veins of Steele. Seiya Suzuki drove in 3 runs, Justin Steele had a big game on the mound, and the Chicago Cubs shut out the San Francisco Giants with a 5-0 victory on Monday afternoon in Chicago.
The win for the Cubs is also the 7th straight for Steele, tying Atlanta Braves pitcher Spencer Strider for the major league lead in wins with 16. The Cubs have won two straight games and 7 of 10 as they are in control of the second wild card spot in the NL.
Cubs manager David Ross said of Steele that "Attacking the strike zone, nice job and very efficient. That guy on the bump is really talented. Then the secondary stuff is really nice. You go that deep in the game, you're bound to, with his stuff, get some extra punch-outs there."
Suzuki started the scoring for the Cubs in the second inning, blasting a solo home run to center field to make it 1-0 Cubs. It stayed 1-0 until the 7th inning, when Suzuki hit an RBI double, scoring Cody Bellinger to make it a 2-0 lead. Suzuki then came around to score on a Yan Gomes RBI single to make it 3-0.
Dansby Swanson made sure it didn't take as long for the Cubs to score again. In the 8th inning, he hit an RBI double, scoring Mike Tauchman and giving the Cubs a 4-0 lead. Up next was Suzuki once again. He reached base on a fielder's choice, scoring Bellinger and making it 5-0, a lead the Cubs held on to.
In his start, Steele struck out a career high 12 hitters, allowing two hits and two walks as he pitched 8 shutout innings, improving to 16-3 on the season. Jose Cuas was the only reliever the Cubs needed to use, pitching a scoreless 9th to seal the win.
Gomes, who caught Steele, said that "He’s got a tremendous heater that sometimes plays as a cutter and rises sometimes. And we try to play that in-between. Call a pitch, hope it does what we want it to do. But today, it was one of the more sharp moments I’ve ever seen him. I wanted it up, he threw it up. I wanted it down, he threw it down."
Logan Webb started for the Giants, getting charged with 3 runs on 5 hits and one walk over 6 2/3 innings, getting slapped with the loss. Tristan Beck pitched the final 1 1/3 innings, allowing two unearned runs.
Giants outfielder Mike Yastrzemski said after the game that "We’re not playing well enough on offense. We’re not playing well enough on defense. We’re probably making too many mistakes on the mound. It’s a shame to go out there and play like that behind Webby when he competed as well as he did to start the game off today. It’s just one of those things where we’ve got to take a look in the mirror and decide who we want to be, and hopefully come back with some aggressive fierceness."
The series continues on Tuesday night. Kyle Hendricks gets the start for the Cubs as they go for the series win, while the Giants try to tie the series with Ryan Walker taking the mound.
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