PIRATES

The Pirates rolled past the Cubs, 12-1, here tonight at PNC Park, handing Chicago its 10th straight loss and largest margin of defeat of the season while deepening a slide that has turned a promising start into a full-blown collapse.

"When you set the tone on the four-pitch walk, that was pretty non-competitive to start the game like that," Jordan Wicks, tagged for eight runs and chased in the fifth inning, told reporters on the Chicago side. "You know, you can't go out there and put your team in a hole like that and expect good things to happen."

The loss extended a brutal stretch for the Cubs, who have surrendered 65 runs and scored 25 during the 10-game skid. What was once a first-place club at the start of the streak has come undone in a hurry, and Tuesday’s result only intensified the pressure as Craig Counsell was ejected in the ninth inning.

“Look, five runs in the first inning, you’re up against it all night," Counsell said. "We had a rough first inning, not good enough. ... Someone's just gotta step up and get hits in those spots. I don't think there's much more to say than that."

"You look in the mirror and change something," Alex Bregman said. "Doing the same thing, over and over again, expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. You keep getting beat the same way, without changing anything, it’s on you."

Get this: These Cubs have already had two 10-game winning streaks, and now this. Another loss would mark the longest losing streak in Major League Baseball history for a team that also had multiple 10-game winning streaks in the same season. The Dodgers achieved that in 2017.