Game 26: Cubs @ Pirates 05.02.16

First of three versus the Cubs at PNC Park. First meeting between the two clubs since the 2015 NL Wild Card Game. Ought to be an interesting series.
Game Preview:
http://espn.go.com/mlb/preview?gameId=360502123
"Cubs-Pirates Preview
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Chicago
Cubs
17-6
7:00 PM ET
ESPN
Line: PIT -110
Pittsburgh
Pirates
15-10
CHC: Hammel (3-0 , 0.75 ERA) PIT: Cole (2-2 , 2.78 ERA)
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2396 tickets available
8:10 PM ET
STATS LLC
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The Chicago Cubs have chosen a creative wardrobe on this visit to Pittsburgh.
They certainly enjoyed a raucous celebration the last time they were there.
The Cubs start a three-game series with the Pirates on Monday night in the NL Central rivals' first meeting since last year's wild-card game.
Chicago (17-6) is used to offbeat manager Joe Maddon deciding on unusual themes for road trips. This one is being called a minimalist zany suit trip, with players set to wear ugly suits.
"I saw this website with some cool suits, different," Maddon said. "Mine will feature tulips. If you're at any time without part of your suit, it's a hundred-dollar fine, unless you're working out. ... Part of it is that we never get dressed up. If we're going to dress up, I don't want it to be a conventional suit. That was my premise. Then I found these."
Dexter Fowler wore pink shorts and a matching sports coat for his outfit. Maddon said he bought the suit with tulips as well as one with leopard skin.
The Cubs' early success is putting the idiom that "a leopard can't change its spots" to the test since the perennially woebegone franchise has been baseball's best team. Maddon's first year with the club was a rousing success, and Chicago's postseason run started with a 4-0 road victory Oct. 7 over a Pirates club that won 98 games.
Jake Arrieta struck out 11 in a five-hitter that night to hand Pittsburgh (15-10) its second straight wild-card game loss.
Gerrit Cole (2-2, 2.78 ERA), who lost that night by allowing four runs in five innings, will face the Cubs again Monday. He went 2-1 with a 2.13 ERA in four 2015 regular-season starts versus Chicago, allowing no homers over 25 1/3 innings before Fowler and Kyle Schwarber -- currently on the disabled list -- took him deep in the playoffs.
Cole is 7-1 with a 2.88 ERA in nine regular-season outings versus Chicago. Fowler is 6 for 17 overall against him.
The right-hander won his second straight start Tuesday by yielding four runs -- two earned -- in six innings of a 9-4 victory at Colorado.
The Cubs will counter with a pitcher who has been even more effective than the unbeatable Arrieta in Jason Hammel (3-0, 0.75), who has the NL's best ERA. Hammel struck out seven in six innings of a 9-0 rout at Cincinnati on April 24 in his last outing.
The right-hander was 1-2 with a 4.35 ERA in four 2015 starts against Pittsburgh. Andrew McCutchen is a .300 hitter in 30 at-bats in this matchup and Francisco Cervelli is 5 for 10.
Cervelli is expected back in the lineup after he sat out Sunday's 6-5, 11-inning home defeat to Cincinnati that ended Pittsburgh's six-game win streak. The Pirates, who committed a season-high four errors, rallied to tie the game during each of the seventh, eighth and ninth innings.
"We got in our own way a couple times, but we battled, and everybody kept playing," manager Clint Hurdle said. "We scored late, they scored late. It was like throwing punches at one another -- and they were able to throw one more than we were."
Chicago welcomed Kris Bryant back from a one-game absence due to an ankle sprain in Sunday's 4-3, 10-inning defeat to Atlanta.
The Cubs, who have yet to lose two straight, took 11 of 19 matchups in the 2015 regular season."
Renewing the Cubs/Pirates Rivalry:
"An intense, budding rivalry begins anew for Cubs, Pirates
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The Baseball Tonight crew previews the pitching matchup of the Cubs' Jason Hammel taking on the Pirates' Gerrit Cole Monday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN. (1:53)
2:28 AM ET
Jesse Rogers
ESPN Staff Writer
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PITTSBURGH -- Two National League powerhouse teams meet this week for the first time since last year's NL wild-card game, and though the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals have a long history to their rivalry, the Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates have some budding nastiness to theirs.
It was October when the teams met in the most intense game of the year, with the Cubs coming out on top 4-0 behind Jake Arrieta's complete game -- but not before tempers flared when Pirates pitcher Tony Watson plunked Arrieta in the seventh inning, not long after the Cubs star got out of the biggest jam of the night with an inning-ending double play.
Watson's first pitch to Arrieta seemed intentional. There were two outs and no one on base, and Arrieta had just hit his second Pirate of the night. The benches cleared, David Ross and Sean Rodriguez made contact, and the Rodriguez took his frustrations out on a water cooler back in the dugout.
Tensions flared between the Cubs and Pirates when the two clubs met during the NL wild-card game. Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports
Rodriguez's anger mimicked that of the hitters in the lineup that night against Arrieta. Arrieta couldn't be solved in the second half of last year, and that game was no different, though his postgame comments might have foreshadowed what was to come for the eventual Cy Young winner.
“I'm exhausted,” Arrieta said. “I haven't felt this way all year. This atmosphere, the energy, it was unbelievable.”
Arrieta did pitch another game of that caliber in the playoffs, nor did the Cubs feel that kind of intensity again.
The rivalry turned up a notch only weeks earlier, when former Cub Chris Coghlan took Pirates infielder Jung Ho Kang out with a controversial slide. Kang was lost for the season with a knee injury, while Coghlan was traded the day the Cubs re-signed Dexter Fowler in the offseason. Kang still isn't back with the Pirates, who never did take or get any revenge.
It's with this backdrop the clubs meet Monday for the first of 19 games between them this season. With all due respect to the Cardinals, the Cubs and Pirates are the only two teams above .500 in the NL Central, and all signs point to an epic race for the division title. Despite the Cubs' getting off to their best start since 1907, the Pirates are just three games behind.
Both teams want to avoid the fate they endured last season: playing in the wild-card game. The Pirates learned that the hard way, having lost the do-or-die game at home in back-to-back years. Arrieta had to use every bullet he had left in his right arm for the Cubs to advance. As a result, both teams have their sights set on the division title.
The Pirates will see Jason Hammel on Monday before Arrieta returns to the mound at PNC Park the next night. In talking with scouts during spring training, there wasn't much consensus on how to beat Arrieta if his 2015 form returned for 2016. One suggestion was to rattle him, which is what the Pirates might have been trying to do in that seventh inning hit-by-pitch. But Arrieta shook it off and subsequently stole second base after the bench-clearing incident.
The Cubs have picked up where they left off last season, and so, seemingly, have the Pirates. Pittsburgh has reinforcements to call up later in the year -- their top pitching prospects are nearly ready -- but they're dangerous right now. After a slow start, they're right on the Cubs' heels, as many expect them to be the entire season.
This week is just Round 1. Will the season series receive immediate intensity, or will it build to a late September 4-gamer at PNC Park to determine the division winner? What about any leftover nastiness? Coghlan's gone, but Ross, Rodriguez and Arrieta remain.
Over the next half-decade, this might be the rivalry of the Central division. If last year is any indication, it's off to a good start."