Dansby Swanson

Swanson was one of three Cubs to have three hits as well in this contest along with Nico Hoerner and Pete Crow-Armstrong. His homer gives him 14 on the season, and that two-run shot along with an RBI double bring that total to 58. Swanson hasn't shown much consistency with the bat, but he's on a nice little run right now to up his OPS to .703.

Dansby Swanson crushed a solo homer that gave the Chicago Cubs an early 1-0 lead over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Chicago Cubs closed out an 8-1 road trip that also included stops in Miami and Pittsburgh

Swanson's 37-for-126 (.293) with three home runs, 23 runs scored, 23 RBI and 10 steals in his last 36 games. That's more like it. It's too late to save his season. Swanson is hitting just .234 on the year now, but he's inspiring some hope that he could be a late round sleeper next year.

Three singles and two walks, one of which was intentional. Bednar, who came into a 10-8 contest, nearly got a double play to end the game with only one run in, but Dansby Swanson beat out the relay. The go-ahead hit was a hard grounder from Christian Bethancourt that shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa should have had or at least kept in front of him to prevent a second run from scoring. Alas, he did neither. Bednar was pulled at that point and Jalen Beeks went on to allow both inherited runners to score. Bednar wasn't bad enough today to deserve that much damage to his ERA, but then, it's not like his season can really be salvaged at this point anyway. He has a 6.32 ERA in 47 innings currently. The Pirates will likely stick with him in the closer's role. Heck, his obvious replacement, Aroldis Chapman, gave up three runs today, too.