{"id":152758,"date":"2025-08-17T09:21:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-17T09:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/152758\/"},"modified":"2025-08-17T09:21:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T09:21:12","slug":"cubs-and-pirates-meet-in-series-rubber-match","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/152758\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs and Pirates meet in series rubber match"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> (52-72, fifth in the NL Central) vs. Chicago Cubs<\/a> (69-53, second in the NL Central)<\/p>\n

Chicago; Sunday, 2:20 p.m. EDT<\/p>\n

PITCHING PROBABLES: Pirates: Carmen Mlodzinski<\/a> (2-7, 4.20 ERA, 1.39 WHIP, 62 strikeouts); Cubs: Javier Assad<\/a> (0-1, 9.00 ERA, 2.25 WHIP, two strikeouts)<\/p>\n

Cubs -199, Pirates +164; over\/under is 8 runs<\/p>\n

BOTTOM LINE: The Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates meet on Sunday with the winner claiming the three-game series.<\/p>\n

Chicago is 69-53 overall and 37-23 at home. The Cubs have the fourth-ranked team batting average in the NL at .252.<\/p>\n

Pittsburgh is 18-43 on the road and 52-72 overall. The Pirates have a 36-22 record in games when they did not allow a home run.<\/p>\n

The matchup Sunday is the 10th time these teams match up this season. The Cubs have a 6-3 advantage in the season series.<\/p>\n

TOP PERFORMERS: Nico Hoerner<\/a> has a .294 batting average to lead the Cubs, and has 20 doubles, three triples and four home runs. Dansby Swanson<\/a> is 10 for 38 with a home run and an RBI over the past 10 games.<\/p>\n

LAST 10 GAMES: Cubs: 4-6, .226 batting average, 2.83 ERA, outscored opponents by two runs<\/p>\n

Pirates: 3-7, .223 batting average, 5.86 ERA, outscored by 29 runs<\/p>\n

INJURIES: Cubs: Miguel Amaya<\/a>: 10-Day IL (ankle), Mike Soroka: 15-Day IL (shoulder), Jameson Taillon: 15-Day IL (calf), Eli Morgan<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow), Justin Steele<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow)<\/p>\n

Pirates: Oneil Cruz: 7-Day IL (concussion), Endy Rodriguez<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow), Enmanuel Valdez<\/a>: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Justin Lawrence<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow), Tim Mayza<\/a>: 60-Day IL (shoulder), Jared Jones<\/a>: 60-Day IL (elbow)<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive<\/a> and data from Sportradar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Pirates (52-72, fifth in the NL Central) vs. Chicago Cubs (69-53, second in the NL Central) Chicago;…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":125354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[89458,960,1271,5723,5386,1818,1266,1886],"class_list":{"0":"post-152758","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-89458","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-espn","12":"tag-il","13":"tag-illinois","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115043374614320263","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}