Brad Lincoln, two relievers stop Cubs

Associated Press

CHICAGO

When they play the Chicago Cubs, the Pittsburgh Pirates hardly resemble a last-place team.

The numbers are almost staggering. When Brad Lincoln pitched seven strong innings Wednesday for his first major league win, lifting the Pirates over the Cubs 2-0 it was Pittsburgh’s ninth win in 12 tries against Chicago.

Those nine wins represent one-third of the Pirates’ victory total (27) this season. And closer Octavio Dotel, who pitched a scoreless ninth, has seven of his 16 saves against the Cubs.

“We’ve played well against them and pitched well against them,” Pirates manager John Russell said.

“We’ll take it. We’ve played them tough, but we’ve played some other teams tough and have not found a way to win but we found a way to win against these guys. Hopefully that will continue.”

Unfortunately for the Pirates — and maybe fortunately for the Cubs — the teams meet only three more times this season.

Pittsburgh broke a scoreless tie in the eighth with two unearned runs when Andy LaRoche reached on Aramis Ramirez’s error with one out, Andrew McCutchen singled and Garrett Jones drove a ball off the ivy in left-center for a run-scoring double against reliever Andrew Cashner (0-3).

After an intentional walk to Ryan Doumit loaded the bases, Chicago reliever Sean Marshall struck out Pedro Alvarez, but walked Lastings Milledge to make it 2-0.

Lincoln (1-2) allowed just four hits in seven innings, the longest outing of his career in just his fifth major league start. He walked one and struck out six. Joel Hanrahan pitched the eighth before Dotel finished the five-hit shutout.

“I felt like it was going to be my day. With the wind blowing in I used it to my advantage and attacked the zone,” Lincoln said.