Correia pitches Bucs past Cubs

Associated Press

CHICAGO

Just call Kevin Correia the road warrior.

Correia pitched shutout ball into the eighth inning before the Pittsburgh Pirates held on to beat the Chicago Cubs 4-2 on Friday.

Correia (7-4) limited Chicago to four singles and a pair of walks in 71/3 innings. He moved into a tie with Boston’s Jon Lester for the major league lead in wins, and has six of the Pirates’ 14 victories away from PNC Park this season.

“You throw half your games on the road your whole career, so it really doesn’t effect me at all,” Correia said. “Every place is a little different.”

Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen remained a thorn in the Cubs’ side with two singles, a walk, an RBI and two stolen bases. He’s reached base in 19 straight games against the Cubs.

Doug Davis (0-3) walked six batters and hit another during 42/3 innings in his 300th career appearance. The Cubs committed a pair of errors in the second that led to two unearned runs, and Davis allowed four in all.

“I’m not going to make any excuses for walking six people. That’s for sure,” Davis said. “I’ve been around long enough to know that walking that many guys against any team is going to come back to haunt you.”

Alfonso Soriano hit his 12th homer of the season, two-run shot off reliever Joe Beimel in the ninth, but Pittsburgh closer Joel Hanrahan came on to strike out three straight batters to remain perfect in 14 save chances this season.

“That’s as sharp a slider as [Hanrahan] has had all season, as well as with the velocity of the fastball,” Pirates manager Clint Hurdle said.

The Cubs got two singles and a walk from Carlos Pena, but not much else. Pena has reached base in 20 of his last 21 games.

Chicago loaded the bases in the eighth. After Correia allowed a single to Koyie Hill and walked Kosuke Fukudome, he was replaced by reliever Jose Veras. He got Darwin Barney on a shallow fly to center, but walked Starlin Castro to load the bases.

Veras got cleanup hitter Aramis Ramirez on a pop fly to second to end the inning.

The Pirates improved to 14-12 on the road this season.

In the second, after the first two batters reached, Ronny Cedeno’s sacrifice bunt was mishandled by Davis, loading the bases. Ramirez then bobbled Correia’s grounder to third, scoring Chris Snyder with the game’s first run. The second scored on Steve Pearce’s sacrifice fly.