Cubs' offense erupts late, earns important win over Pirates

“We've got to play 'em one day at a time.”

“I'm just happy to be here. Hope I can help the ballclub.”

“I just want to give it my best shot, and the good Lord willing, things will work out.”

True baseball fans can close their eyes and clearly see that scene from “Bull Durham” where Crash Davis gives phenom pitcher Ebby Calvin “Nuke” LaLoosh advice on how to deal with the media.

Manager David Ross took the same boring road when asked if the Cubs' current stretch against first-place Pittsburgh (six games in nine days) is an important one.

“Man. I honestly — I know this is a broken record — I think that they're all important,” said Ross, whose team came back from a 5-1 deficit to beat the Pirates 10-6 at Wrigley Field on Wednesday. “I don't ever get in the space of one's more important than the other. We can't live in that space.”

Perhaps.

But it seems like an odd take because — while all 162 games are important — a win over the Pirates, Brewers, Reds or Cardinals moves the Cubs further ahead or closer to each divisional foe.

And it's perhaps even more important this season, the first one in which teams are playing all 31 other clubs. That means the Cubs will only see NL Central opponents 48 times.

Ross isn't buying that logic, though.

“I get what you're saying,” he said. “We need to win games against the (division) opponents.

“I also would say in that same breath, we need to play our best brand of baseball. We've got to be consistent offensively. We've got to be better out of the bullpen. Our starting pitching's giving us a chance pretty consistently.

“Then things take care of themselves. We just continue to win games each night. Focus on ourselves and we'll be just fine at the end.”

Things didn't start out fine Wednesday as starting pitcher Drew Smyly gave up 3 home runs, which allowed the Pirates to take a 5-1 lead after four innings.

But the Cubs erupted in the sixth, getting 2-run singles from Mike Tauchman and Ian Happ, an RBI single from Dansby Swanson and an RBI walk — on a pitch-clock violation no less — from Nick Madrigal. Swanson led off the 6-run frame off with a single and went 3-for-5 to raise his average to .265.

Pittsburgh got within 7-6 in the seventh, but Tauchman (single), Nico Hoerner (hit-and-run single), Seiya Suzuki (2-RBI double) and Matt Mervis (RBI single) teamed up to give the Cubs a 10-6 lead in the eighth.

Tauchman (3-for-5) turned in the defensive play of the game by making a tremendous running catch at the center-field wall in the seventh on a drive by Santana. Brian Reynolds tagged up and scored from third, but if the ball falls it's a 2-run double.

“That was a big one,” Ross said. “There's two of those this week for him. Those type of plays are the ones that kind of help us stay in and not get in that little bit of a rut of, 'Here we go again' where we get a lead and then you give it back. That catch right there saved us.”

The Cubs improved to 30-37 and are now just 4½ games behind the Pirates.

So how important is this series to the players?

It depends on who you ask.

“I mean they're the first-place team and they come into our house and you want to beat them,” Smyly said. “You want to show them we're just as good; we're better than you.

“So to have two wins like that where our offense has hit really good, and now we have (Marcus) Stroman on the mound tomorrow for a chance for the sweep — that would be a huge series for us.”

Happ — just as he did in the sixth inning with his base hit — went to the opposite field.

“They're not any more important,” he said. “It's one game at a time and playing with that mindset. It doesn't matter if you beat a team with 100 wins or a team with 5 wins.

“They all count the same and I think the ability to go out there every single day and have the same mindset that you're gonna go play really consistent, really good baseball is what the good teams do. The great teams don't care who they're playing.

“They just go play good baseball.”

The Cubs, winners of four of five, are finally doing that once again.

And there's nothing boring about that.