CHICAGO -- Before Wednesday's game, Cubs manager Joe Maddon said his team just hadn't hit to its level yet. They broke loose against the Pirates, sparked by Javier Baez's second straight two-homer game.
Baez smacked a three-run homer in the second inning, scored the tie-breaking run in the sixth after some heads-up baserunning, and added a solo shot in the eighth to spark the Cubs to a 13-5 victory Wednesday night over the Pirates, who lost on the road for the first time in five games.
Baez, who hit a pair of solo homers on Tuesday, is the first Cubs player with consecutive multi-homer games since Alfonso Soriano did so, May 16-17, 2008.