Cubs win in 11th inning walk-off when Pirates 2B Wilmer Difo misses pop fly

The Pittsburgh Pirates had blown a three-run lead, rallied to tie the game in the ninth inning and put the Chicago Cubs in a spot where they had run out of position players in extra innings.

Somehow, the Pirates found a new way to lose.

Second baseman Wilmer Difo turned a routine play into a walk-off win for the Cubs when he missed a Frank Schwindel pop-up in the 11th inning, an error that allowed Sergio Alcantara to score from third for a 6-5 win Thursday night at Wrigley Field.

“I thought it was a hard-fought game by both sides,” said Pirates first baseman Colin Moran, who hit a three-run home run in the first inning. “I thought we got a good lead early, and then they took the lead and we fought back and tied it up. I thought it was a good battle.”

The Pirates (48-86) dropped their third consecutive game in Chicago, after being swept in a two-game series by the White Sox. Shelton sent Michael Perez to pinch hit with the bases loaded in the ninth, and the backup catcher delivered a two-run single to right to send the game into extra innings. But a pair of misplays in the field cost them the game.

The Cubs (60-75) got a weird win after the Pirates took a 3-0 lead on Moran’s homer and got what Pirates manager Derek Shelton repeatedly called an “outstanding” outing from starter Mitch Keller, only for starter-turned-reliever Chad Kuhl to give up the lead on a pair of home runs in a five-run seventh by the Cubs.

After Moran went opposite field for a three-run home run off Cubs starter Keegan Thompson, Keller turned in his first quality start and longest outing of the season. Relying heavily on his fastball and slider, the right-hander from Des Moines struck out eight while giving up six hits without a walk with his family and friends in the stands.

“Right now, it just kind of feels like everything is synced up delivery-wise, where I feel my timing and the way it’s coming out of my hand feels really good where I can throw it wherever I want to,” Keller said, “whereas early in the season I was scuffling and trying to find that release point and find what that feels like. I don’t know how to explain it, but I had that feeling tonight, which was great.”

Keller threw his four-seamer on 55% (49 of 89) of his pitches, using all four quadrants to get 15 called strikes and three whiffs. The ability to move the fastball around the strike zone gave Keller what he was missing most early this season: a dose of confidence that made him the team’s top pitching prospect the previous two years.

“Honestly, if you can throw up and away, up and in, down and in and down and away, it feels like that’s four different pitches,” Keller said, “and I don’t have to put so much stress on my other pitches to be as good.”

Kuhl replaced Keller in the seventh, but the Cubs batted around the order as six of the first seven batters he faced got hits, including a pair of home runs. Rafael Ortega drove a 1-1 fastball 368 feet to right field for his ninth homer and tie the game at 3-3. Schwindel, the 29-year-old first baseman who won NL rookie of the month honors for August, followed with a single and Ian Happ sent Kuhl’s 2-2 curveball 393 feet to right for his 18th homer and a 5-3 lead.

“I think it was just execution of pitches and, just seeing the replays on the board, it looked like it was a lot of pitches in the middle of the zone,” Shelton said. “When you miss in the middle of the zone in the big leagues, you’re going to get hit.”

The Cubs pulled Thompson with two outs and runners on first and third in the second inning, only for their bullpen to blank the Pirates. Cubs relievers Adrian Sampson, Scott Effross and Adam Morgan combined to retire the next 17 batters before Morgan walked Bryan Reynolds with one out in the eighth.

The Pirates rallied in the top of the ninth, as Jacob Stallings led off the ninth with a single to left off Rowan Wick for the Pirates’ first hit since the second inning. Difo hit a high chopper to second, beating Matt Duffy’s throw to put runners on first and second. With one out, Hoy Park reached on catcher’s interference by Robinson Chirinos to load the bases for Perez, whose pinch-hit single to right scored Stallings and Difo to tie the game at 5-5.

Cole Tucker started the 10th on second base and advanced to third on Ben Gamel’s grounder to second but was thrown out at the plate when Reynolds grounded to first. The Pirates had runners on first and second when Stallings hit into a forceout at second.

David Bednar struck out three of the four batters he faced in the ninth, then delivered a pair of high-stakes strikeouts in the 10th. With Matt Duffy on third, Bednar got Chirinos to chase a curveball. After intentionally walking Alcantara to force the Cubs to use their final position player as a pinch hitter, he whiffed Austin Romine on a 97-mph four-seam fastball to get out of the jam.

Alcantara started the 11th on second and advanced when Park didn’t cover third base on Ortega’s sacrifice bunt in front of home plate. That forced Stallings to throw to first and put the winning run at third. Shelton didn’t fault Park for the play, given it was only his second major league game at the position.

“It’s a tough read for any third baseman, much less for a guy that hasn’t played over there a ton of time, because of the angle that you’re coming at,” Shelton said. “If that ball goes four or five more feet out, then we’re wondering why he didn’t come in and field it and now we’re first and third.”

Sam Howard got Schwindel to pop up for what should have been the second out. Instead, Difo misplayed the ball, as the wind carried it to his right and dropped in the dirt to allow the winning run to score.

“Off the bat, instead of getting behind it, he drifted to it, and you cannot drift on any balls in this ballpark with the way the wind plays,” Shelton said. “It’s a frustrating loss because we battled our butts off the entire game, and he’s just got to get behind that baseball.”