Chicago Cubs can’t pull off a comeback in 13-7 loss as Justin Steele makes his shortest non-injury start of the year

Left-hander Justin Steele has been a stabilizing force in a Chicago Cubs rotation that looks different from their opening-day version.

Through all the injuries, inconsistencies and role changes, Steele’s consistency helped the Cubs recover from being 10 games under .500 in early June to fighting for a wild-card spot. But for a second consecutive start, Steele allowed six runs and struggled to keep the Cubs in the game. His three-plus innings in Wednesday’s 13-7 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates represented his second-shortest outing of the season, exceeded only by his injury-related departure May 31.

The Pirates won the rubber game of the series Thursday, defeating the Cubs 8-6 at Wrigley Field. The Cubs fell into a tie with the idle Miami Marlins for the No. 3 National League wild-card spot — and the Marlins own the tiebreaker — with nine games remaining.

Steele on Wednesday struck out six batters through three innings when the Pirates started finding holes. They had six consecutive singles to begin the fourth, quickly ending his night and likely his case to win the National League Cy Young Award.

“Six straight hits, the alarm goes off a little bit, like, what’s going on,” manager David Ross said.

Steele was charged with six earned runs, including two inherited runners reliever José Cuas allowed to score, all part of a seven-run fourth inning.

“It just kind of seemed like whether they hit it hard or not, if they put it in play it was going to find some grass and be a hit,” Steele said. “It’s just one of them nights.”

The Cubs got back in it behind a five-run fifth inning, sparked by Christopher Morel’s leadoff home run and Ian Happ’s grand slam to cut the Pirates’ lead to 8-6.

That was as close as the Cubs would get to pulling out a comeback win. The bullpen couldn’t respond with a shutdown inning. Mark Leiter Jr. surrendered three runs, including Connor Joe’s two-run homer. The Pirates tacked on two runs in the ninth off right-hander Daniel Palencia.

“We’ve been saying this all along, but you just got to go day to day, you’ve got to move on to the next one,” Happ said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of games like this throughout the year that you did a lot of things right but come out on the wrong side of, so we come back tomorrow, do it again and look for a better result.

“He’s been steady for us,” Happ said of Steele. “He’s been the guy, we’ve relied on him all year. He’s been fantastic and we’ll continue to rely on him moving forward.”

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