After three straight wins at Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs were halted in their tracks by rookie pitcher Peter Lambert in a 3-1 loss on Thursday afternoon.
Lambert, making his major league debut for the Rockies, struck out nine batters and allowed just one earned run in seven innings of work for Colorado. The performance helped the Rockies salvage the final game of the three-game set at the Friendly Confines.
Jose Quintana gave up three runs in 7.1 innings for the Cubs, but he took the loss as the Cubs snapped a three-game losing skid.
Ian Desmond had a pair of doubles and an RBI for the Rockies, and Chris Iannetta drove in a run for the Colorado victory. Javier Baez drove in the lone run of the afternoon for the Cubs as their offense struggled to generate any pressure on the rookie hurler.
The game remained scoreless until the top of the fourth inning when David Dahl singled to left field, scoring Trevor Story and giving the Rockies the lead. Two batters later, Desmond hammered a double to deep center field, pushing Dahl across the plate and extending the Colorado advantage to 2-0.
The Cubs finally broke through in the sixth inning, as Kris Bryant hammered a double into the left field corner. He would later score on an RBI single by Baez, bringing the Cubs to within a run at 2-1.
The Rockies responded in the top of the seventh, with Iannetta driving a sacrifice fly to right field to score Desmond. That run was all the team needed as they finished off the victory on the arms of Jairo Diaz and Scott Oberg, who picked up his third save of the season.
Chicago Baseball
The Cubs will have another day game on Friday, welcoming the St. Louis Cardinals to Wrigley Field for a three-game set. The Cubs swept the Cardinals at Wrigley earlier this season, but St. Louis returned the favor last weekend at Busch Stadium as they took three straight games from the North Siders.
