Pittsburgh Pirates’ Jung Ho Kang, bottom center, is tended to by a team trainer after injuring his left leg turning a double play in the first inning of a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs in Pittsburgh, Thursday, Sept…. The Pirates will need to stay ahead of the Cubs to keep the Wild Card game at PNC, too, since they’re now 6-10 against them and won’t be able to make up that deficit in their three-game set at Wrigley next weekend. The Cubs are now only two games behind the Pirates for the first wildcard spot in the National League. “We continued to get in our way”. I’m confident he meant me no harm.
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Coghlan provided another October kind of moment when he slid hard into Pirates shortstop Jung Ho Kang trying to break up a double play. The Pirates chipped away at the lead in the seventh off of a run scoring single by Polanco and a ground rule double by Neil Walker that resulted in a run, but unfortunately that represented the end of the attempted comeback by Pittsburgh on Thursday. “I’ve been injured. I’ve hurt my knee”.
“It seems like we’ve been gone for a month”, Cubs manager Joe Maddon said with a smile.
Morton [9-8] threw four-plus innings, his second shortest start of the season and allowed nine hits which is one behind his season high.
In a statement released through agent Alan Nero, Kang called it “a serious injury” and said Coghlan was not to blame.
Burnett gave up two runs and eight hits in 5 1-3 innings. “At the same time, you have to play the game hard”.
Chris Denorfia singled off Worley to start the inning and was replaced by pinch-runner Quintin Berry, who advanced to second on a wild pitch and third on Austin Jackson’s single. He had 15 home runs and a 123 OPS+. Then Pedro Alvarez golfed Hendricks’ curveball over the Clemente Wall, giving the Pirates a 4-3 lead.
Richard began the season with the Pirates’ Triple-A Indianapolis farm club before the Cubs purchased his contract July 3. He did not play.
“Our bench is definitely built for something like this”, shortstop Jordy Mercer, who suffered a strained MCL earlier this season on a similar play to the one that took out Kang, told Adam Berry of MLB.com.
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Pittsburgh trails St. Louis by 4 1/2 games in the NL Central.
