Justin Steele allowed one run through six innings and Trey Mancini had three hits with an RBI as the Chicago Cubs rolled to a 10-3 victory against the visiting Texas Rangers on Saturday.
Patrick Wisdom and Yan Gomes homered, Ian Happ had three RBIs and Dansby Swanson had two hits and drove in a run for the Cubs, who belted out 14 hits to pick up their third straight win following a three-game skid.
Steele (1-0), who threw six scoreless innings against Milwaukee in his season debut, yielded four of Texas’ seven hits and overcame four walks for another solid effort. He struck out three.
Nathaniel Lowe had two hits with two RBIs for the Rangers. Corey Seager also had two hits, but committed two of Texas’ five errors. Rangers starter Martin Perez allowed three runs (two earned) through five innings. He also fanned five without a walk but got limited run support, as Texas has only scored 12 runs in six games after totaling 27 in the first two.
The Cubs opened the scoring in the first when Swanson ended up on second via Seager’s throwing error off an infield single. He went to third on a balk and came home via Happ’s groundout.
The Rangers leveled things in the third. Seager led off with a double to left-center field and eventually scored on Josh Jung’s single to right.
Chicago regained the lead in the home half of the third when Nick Madrigal doubled and scored on Swanson’s single. An inning later, Wisdom made it 3-1 when he deposited a Perez cutter into the left field bleachers.
The Cubs added two more runs in the sixth. Mancini singled and went to third on Wisdom’s infield single. Wisdom was able to advance to second on the play thanks to another Seager throwing error. Both scored on Eric Hosmer’s ground-ball base hit into center.
Texas got a run back in the seventh after Keegan Thompson issued two walks ahead of an RBI single by Lowe. However, Mancini’s RBI single in the seventh made it 6-2 and the Cubs cruised from there.
–Field Level Media