Both teams were staring at a 100-loss season, and starters Chris Volstad and Dallas Keuchel combined for a 3-17 record entering the game.
When the two worst teams in baseball get together, it's anyone's guess as to which one will blink first, but a near certainty that few fans will care.
Only a few hundred hung around until the end of the Cubs' 4-1 win, in a game that took 3 hours, 50 minutes to complete.
"It seemed like there was a two-hour rain delay," manager Dale Sveum said. "It was kind of funny how long it took."
Volstad lasted only five innings but earned his third win in his last four starts. Right fielder Dave Sappelt drove in three runs and scored another on a wild pitch, getting a chance to show what he can do in a brief September audition.
The Cubs' magic number to avoid 100 losses is now eight, and they've tied their season high with four straight wins.
"To beat a playoff contending team in Pittsburgh and come in here and win the first game is big for this team," Sveum said. "The guys are starting to understand how close 100 losses are. That's the goal, that's the talk now, and obviously they're responding now too."
Because of trades, injuries and the shutdown of Jeff Samardzija, Volstad somehow wound up as the ace of the Cubs staff entering the final three weeks. Over the last month, none of the other current Cubs starters â€" Travis Wood, Chris Rusin, Justin Germano and Jason Berken â€" had more than one win. Volstad at least had a two-game winning streak recently after going 24 consecutive starts without a win.
If Volstad and Wood can't last longer than five or six innings in their starts, Sveum will have to go to his bullpen earlier than he'd like to on a near daily basis
"We have the luxury of so many guys in the bullpen, (so) you don't have to think about that too often, especially with a day off coming up on Thursday," Sveum said. "But these are the guys that have pitched enough in the big leagues you want to see more.
"You want to see the ability to go through the lineup the third time, getting into the fourth time, and (in) that seventh, eighth innings, to sustain the stuff and (keep) the mindset of (pitching) the whole game, every at-bat, like it's the seventh game of the World Series."
Sveum wasn't equating the Cubs-Astros game to the seventh game of a World Series, of course. Only about 5,000 of an announced crowd of 13,121 showed up, giving it the feel of the 14th game of the Cactus League schedule.
The Astros are the youngest team in baseball with an average age of 26.2 years, while the Cubs ranked third at 26.6 years. Several players on the field Monday wouldn't be playing if they were on any other team, and some won't be in the majors in a year or two.
The teams have five games remaining in the season series, including a season-ending series at Wrigley Field on Oct. 1-3.
Don't blink.
Twitter @PWSullivan
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