NATIONAL LEAGUE Ramirez blasts pair as Cubs beat Pirates

Chicago split the series with the Bucs and trail Houston by 11/2 games.
PITTSBURGH (AP) -- In Aramis Ramirez's mind, the Chicago Cubs' magic number is five.
With the Cubs a half-game behind NL Central leader Houston and 11/2 games back in the wild-card race with six games to play, Ramirez thinks they must win five to reach the postseason.
That's a higher winning percentage than they had over the weekend in Pittsburgh, when they twice missed chances to gain ground before beating the Pirates 4-1 Sunday.
Ramirez hit two home runs against his old team and Mark Prior backed up manager Dusty Baker's pregame victory prediction with a dominating start, striking out 14 in 72/3 innings.
Cubs have six games left
But, to Ramirez, the 2-2 split against the Pirates wasn't good enough, and he expects them to play better in the three-game series that opens Tuesday in Cincinnati. After that, the Cubs close the season next weekend in Wrigley Field against the Pirates.
"I've never been this close [to the postseason] before," said Ramirez, who played parts of six seasons with the Pirates before being traded to Chicago in July. "The Astros have been playing great this month and we have, too. We've got six games left, so we've got to win at least five to make the playoffs."
Prior (17-6) probably couldn't have pitched much better, shutting out the Pirates on three hits over seven innings until tiring in the eighth. Tike Redman singled in a run before the Pirates loaded the bases with two outs, but Mike Remlinger came in to strike out Jose Hernandez. Joe Borowski then pitched the ninth for his 32nd save.
Prior's 14 strikeouts were two below his season high of 16, and he retired 15 batters in a row at one point. Not that his excellent start was anything new; he is 9-1 in 10 starts since coming off the disabled list Aug. 4 and has become a prime contender for the NL Cy Young Award.
The right-hander has one more start, probably Friday against the Pirates. He is 4-0 against them in his career and 3-0 this season.
No wonder Baker was certain the Cubs would win.
"It's pretty much a guaranteed win [with Prior pitching]," Ramirez said. "We know he's going to be tough on teams, so we have to make sure we get some runs for him."
The Cubs did exactly that. They jumped on rookie left-hander Oliver Perez (4-10) for four singles in a span of five batters to take a 2-0 lead in the first. Ramirez and Eric Karros each had RBI singles.