Josh Bell, Colin Moran homer too late in Pirates' 6-3 loss to Cubs

Josh Bell hopes five swings of the bat in the ninth inning Friday night will ignite the Pittsburgh Pirates’ offense.

But back-to-back home runs by Colin Moran and Bell couldn’t turn around the Pirates’ fortunes in a 6-3 loss to the Chicago Cubs (5-2) at Wrigley Field.

Bell, who displayed his brute strength by breaking his bat and muscling a ball into the right-field seats, said better days are ahead for the Pirates (2-5).

“It doesn’t take much for us to rally around each other,” said Bell, who went directly into the batting cage after the game. “All it takes is one good inning early to set the tone for where we want to go the rest of the year.”

Manager Derek Shelton even liked the three at-bats – all outs — after the home runs, with Gregory Polanco flying out to deep center field and Bryan Reynolds and Cole Tucker grounding out sharply to second base.

“I thought we hit five balls really hard in the ninth,” he said. “We hit the last three right at people. That’s an encouraging sign moving forward.”

Shelton’s starting lineup showed seven of the nine players hitting .174 or less, and four sitting at .100 or less. Bell said that won’t last.

“You have guys who are not going to hit .150,” he said. “Keep trusting the work day. Keep trusting the routine. It’s going to come in bunches. We’re going to score a lot of runs.”

Bell likes Shelton’s batting order that puts him third – where he’s made only 30 career starts – and Moran fourth.

Moran’s homer was his National League-leading fourth of the season.

“Homers to all fields, drawing walks, laying off really tough pitches,” Bell said, describing what Moran has done well so far this season.

“He’s definitely locked in right now. I want to pick his brain a little bit, what he’s sitting on up there, what he’s seeing. What’s your preparation?

“You get two or three other guys clicking like he’s clicking, it’s going to be bad news for the rest of the division.”

Said Shelton: “Colin’s at-bats had been trending like that. We need to continue to trend that way as a group.”

For the first six innings, however, four-time All-Star pitcher Yu Darvish had command over the Pirates’ bats. He struck out seven and allowed only two hits while touching the upper 90s mph with his velocity.

“That’s probably the best I’ve seen Darvish in a while,” Shelton said. “He had that extra gear I hadn’t seen in previous outings.”

The Pirates’ 16-inning scoreless streak ended in the eighth when Jarrod Dyson singled to drive in Polanco, whose double was his first hit of the season.

The Cubs took a 1-0 lead in the third when Pirates starting pitcher Trevor Williams (0-2) gave up an unearned run by throwing wildly to first base on Javier Baez’s bunt.

“I didn’t get a good grip on the ball,” Williams said. “I probably should have eaten it.”

Jason Kipnis homered in the fourth and Williams started the fifth with two consecutive walks. Shelton removed him for Nik Turley, who walked two more and allowed a bases-loaded, two-run single by Jason Heyward.

“Early in the game, the execution was really good,” Shelton said of Williams’ effort that included six strikeouts in 4 2/3 innings. “He started the fifth with two walks and the slider kind of got away from him a little bit and then we had some traffic again.”

The blasts by Moran and Bell might have been more dramatic, but the Cubs added two runs in the eighth and took a 6-1 lead off relievers Miguel Del Pozo and Dovydas Neverauskas. The big blow was another two-run, bases-loaded single, this time by Anthony Rizzo.

After Williams struck out Willson Contreras to end the third, both players barked at each other. Williams shouted after executing the pitch and Contreras, thinking it was directed at him, shot back.

“It’s competitiveness from both sides,” Williams said. “It’s going to happen, unfortunately, a lot this year with no fans. You’re going to be able to hear a lot more.”