Jameson Taillon and the Chicago Cubs meet the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday, May 27, 2026, at 5:40 CT on Marquee Sports Network, with the Cubs trying to snap an eight-game losing streak.
Taillon's recent results give that task a sharp edge. He had another rough outing last Friday against the Astros, though that appearance featured only one home run allowed. That single-run blemish followed a prior game in which he yielded five home runs to the Astros. Against the Pirates earlier in the season, Pittsburgh hit Taillon hard at Wrigley Field on April 12, including three home runs, even as he struck out 10 Pirates hitters that day.
Those mixed signals are not new in Taillon's ledger. He also threw six shutout innings against the Pirates at PNC Park on September 15, 2025, a performance that sits opposite the April 12 game when he was hammered for three homers. The contrast—dominant strikeout potential on one hand, vulnerability to the long ball on the other—will frame how the Cubs approach Wednesday's matchup.
On the other side of the pitching conversation sits Bubba Chandler. Chandler opened the 2026 season with a pretty good run, but he has begun to get hit hard in his recent starts. Over his last six outings he carries a 6.00 ERA and a 1.593 WHIP. Walks have become the clearest symptom: Chandler leads Major League Baseball with 34 walks in 47 innings and owns a 16 percent walk rate overall.
Those figures matter because they map directly onto the game's tension. Taillon's issue has been the long ball in bursts—five home runs in one outing, three at Wrigley in April—offset by the ability to miss bats, as shown by 10 strikeouts in that April meeting and a six-shutout-inning line last September. Chandler, by contrast, does not show the same overpowering strikeout upside in the verified facts; his recent trouble is control, which has translated into a high walk total and a 6.00 ERA across his last six starts.
The real match-up question for Wednesday is simple and immediate: which version of each pitcher shows up? If Taillon can limit the long ball and lean on the swing-and-miss that produced 10 strikeouts at Wrigley, the Cubs will have a clear path out of an eight-game skid. If Chandler can cut down the free passes that produced 34 walks in 47 innings and lower a 16 percent walk rate, he will blunt what has been a damaging stretch of starts and give the Pirates a steadier chance to take advantage of Chicago's slide.
There is a tidy symmetry to the preview: Taillon's performances read as peaks and valleys—five home runs in one outing, one in the next, and six shutout innings in a prior season—while Chandler's recent pattern is steadily rising alarm in the walks column. Wednesday's 5:40 CT first pitch on Marquee Sports Network will tell which trend matters more, and whether the Cubs can end their eight-game losing streak with pitching that produces fewer long balls and far fewer free passes.
