The pitching hero of the day Sunday was rookie Jaye Chapman. The Cubs had taken a 10-9 lead after Anthony Rizzo’s grand slam in the sixth. Starling Marte tripled to lead off the Pirates seventh but Neal Walker lined out to Darwin Barney, and Chapman got Andrew McCutchen to strike out looking at a 93 mph fastball. Garrett Jones walked, and then took off for second. Chapman was about to throw, but saw Marte break for home and threw to catcher Welington Castillo, who tagged the Pirates’ speedster.
“I’m not even sure Garrett Jones knew he got picked off,” Chapman said. “I looked at him, and his head was down. I looked at second base, and a thought ran through my head, ‘Hey, that guy’s going to score,’ and I turned around and sure enough, Marte had taken off. I was like, ‘Just make the throw and let’s get out of here.’”
“He showed me a lot today, that’s for sure,” Dale Sveum said of Chapman, acquired from the Braves in the Paul Maholm deal.
It was pretty gutsy to throw a fastball to McCutchen.
“I faced him [Friday] and threw him all breaking stuff, and I threw him all breaking stuff today,” Chapman said. “We got to 3-2, and he just swung over a slider, and I was thinking, ‘I don’t know for sure, but I haven’t thrown him a fastball and he hasn’t seen one from me. Let’s see what happens.’ Fortunately for me, he took it.”
Told that Sveum was impressed, Chapman smiled.
“You have to make that inning count,” he said. “I’m grateful just to be here, in all honesty.”
– Carrie Muskat
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