Yu Darvish pitches Cubs to 6th straight win

Kansas City, Missouri – Yu Darvish pitched seven sharp innings and the Chicago Cubs beat the skidding Kansas City Royals 6-1 on Wednesday night for their sixth straight victory.

Javier Baez drove in two runs for the Cubs (10-2), who handed Kansas City its sixth consecutive defeat. Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo each had two hits and scored twice.

The Cubs turned double plays in back-to-back innings at Kauffman Stadium and overturned a one-run deficit in the fourth in support of the Japanese right-hander, who scattered five hits and issued a walk while striking out four.

“My pitches weren’t good at all and I didn’t have the control that I wanted, but when I got into jams, I thought it would be fine if I could avoid making any crucial mistakes,” Darvish said.

Darvish has a 2.12 ERA with 16 strikeouts in three starts this season.

“Just another great start from him,” Chicago manager David Ross said. “I thought he really took off after we took the lead.”

With the score 2-1, the Royals’ best chance to tie the game came in the sixth when Whit Merrifield was on third with one out. Darvish struck out Ryan O’Hearn and retired Salvador Perez on a grounder, ending the threat.

The Cubs capitalized on one bad stretch for Royals starter Kris Bubic, who set down his first nine batters, including four strikeouts, before Bryant singled in the fourth.

Rizzo followed with a walk, and then a bloop hit by Baez tied it 1-all. Willson Contreras grounded into a double play, but Rizzo scored to give the Cubs a 2-1 lead.

“The guys had great at-bats and baserunning,” Ross said. “The attention to detail has been really good.”

Kansas City (3-10) started the scoring in the third when a double off the left-field wall by Maikel Franco was followed by Nicky Lopez’s single, but a potential big inning was thwarted when Merrifield grounded into a 1-4-3 double play.

The Cubs took advantage of two fielding mistakes in the eighth and ninth, tacking on four runs to make it 6-1.

Bubic (0-2), making his second career start, went six innings and gave up two runs. He struck out six.

“That was exactly what we were looking for,” Royals manager Mike Matheny said. “His changeup was really good and breaking ball was good, too.”

Source : Baseball – The Japan Times