For a guy who could fit inside the back pocket of most of his teammates, Kevin Foster is turning out to be a pretty big man for the Cubs this year.
Foster, 25, continued his march through the National League with another impressive pitching performance Thursday night, holding the Pittsburgh Pirates to just four hits through seven innings in a 10-3 victory.
It was the ninth victory in 14 tries for the Cubs since the All-Star break and gives them a chance to climb out of last place in the NL Central division for the first time since June 4.
The Cubs are 1 1/2 games back of the fourth-place Cardinals going into a weekend series in St. Louis.
“That was a nice win to take into that big, crucial series with the Cardinals,” said manager Tom Trebelhorn.
Foster was lucky just to get out of the first inning. He might not have, in fact, if the Cubs hadn’t staked him to a 5-0 lead in the top of the first before he even took the mound.
All five of those runs came off Pittsburgh starter Dennis Cooke (4-9), who threw just 12 pitches and gave up a double and four singles without retiring a batter before manager Jim Leyland mercifully came and got him.
The Cubs got a total of six hits in the first inning and finished the night with a season-high 17 hits off five Pittsburgh pitchers.
For a while in the bottom of the first it looked as if Foster would give up 17 hits-or walk 17 batters. He gave up a single and three walks to four of the first five batters he faced before settling down.
“That first inning was real rough,” said Foster. “I felt real strong and I guess I just got over-excited. (Pitching coach) Moe (Drabowsky) came out and told me to settle down and I was fine after that.”
Actually, Foster struggled again in the second inning, giving up another walk and two singles to load the bases before striking out Orlando Merced and getting former Cub Dave Clark on a deep fly to center.
That was the start of a string of 13 consecutive outs and Foster was fine from then on. He finished the night with seven strikeouts and six walks.
Foster is averaging almost one strikeout per inning-63 in 69 1/3 innings. That’s an average of 8.2 strikeouts for every nine innings pitched, which puts him fifth in the National League behind Andy Benes, Pedro Martinez, Jose Rijo and Shane Reynolds.
The victory was Foster’s first in more than a month, since June 25 against St. Louis. He had two losses and three no-decisions during that drought, but that was mostly because his teammates failed to support him.
