Michael Busch homered to lead off the game and added two doubles, fueling the visiting Chicago Cubs to a 4-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Tuesday.
Chicago’s Nico Hoerner also collected three hits and Pete Crow-Armstrong had an RBI single and joined Ian Happ in delivering a sacrifice fly.
The Cubs (87-64) recorded 14 hits to notch their third straight win and sixth in the past seven games. The Pirates (65-87) took their third consecutive defeat, their 10th loss in the past 11 outings.
Chicago rookie Cade Horton (11-4) improved to 8-1 in his past 10 starts after allowing one run on three hits in five innings. He struck out six and walked one.
Horton finished the fifth before three relievers combined to yield just one hit and strike out four batters over the next three scoreless innings. Brad Keller fanned two in the ninth inning to secure his third save of the season, his second in as many nights.
Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes (10-10) permitted three runs on seven hits before exiting after 3 2/3 innings. He issued three walks and struck out six.
Busch set the tone early by depositing a 2-1 curveball from Skenes over the wall in right field. The homer was Busch’s team high-tying 29th of the season and third in his past four games.
Crow-Armstrong, who also has 29 homers on the season, plated Happ with an RBI single to left field to double the advantage later in the first inning.
Pittsburgh halved the deficit in its half of the inning after Spencer Horwitz reached on a one-out single and scored on Oneil Cruz’s triple to right field.
Busch ripped a one-out double in the second inning, advanced to third on a single by Hoerner and trotted home on Happ’s sacrifice fly.
Chicago secured a 4-1 lead after Moises Ballesteros worked a leadoff walk in the fifth inning, advanced to third on Carson Kelly’s double and scored on Crow-Armstrong’s flyout to right field.
