{"id":661372,"date":"2026-05-24T00:16:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T00:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/661372\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T00:16:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T00:16:25","slug":"walker-homers-twice-astros-beat-cubs-3-0-as-chicago-loses-7-straight-for-first-time-since-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/661372\/","title":{"rendered":"Walker homers twice, Astros beat Cubs 3-0 as Chicago loses 7 straight for first time since 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO — – Christian Walker<\/a> homered twice with three RBI, and the Houston Astros<\/a> beat Chicago 3-0 Saturday to extend the Cubs’ losing streak to seven, their longest skid in four years.<\/p>\n

Kai-Wei Teng<\/a> (3-3) allowed two hits in six innings, struck out six and walked three as the Astros won their second straight and third in four games. Three relievers followed, with Bryan King<\/a> working around a ninth-inning single to finish a three-hitter for his sixth save.<\/p>\n

Chicago’s losing streak is its longest since a nine-game slide from July 7-16, 2022. The Cubs, who have lost 11 of 13, also had a pair of 10-game winning streaks this season.<\/p>\n

The Cubs are just the fifth team in the expansion era started in 1961 with a pair of winning streaks of at least 10 games and a losing streak of at least seven games in the same season, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. They joined the 1969 and 2019 Houston Astros, 1978 Pittsburgh Pirates<\/a> and 2017 Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez<\/a> left the game in the middle of an at-bat in the sixth inning with a back spasm.<\/p>\n

Walker hit a two-run homer in the first and added his 13th homer in the fourth, both against Colin Rea<\/a> (4-3).<\/p>\n

Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner<\/a> made a between-the-legs flip to first baseman Michael Busch<\/a> to retire C\u00e9sar Salazar on a fifth-inning drag bunt. The two-time Gold Glove winner made a bare-hand pickup before tossing to Busch, who reached high to his left.<\/p>\n

Chicago benched Ian Happ<\/a>, in a 1-for-24 slide, and started Michael Conforto<\/a>, who went 0 for 2.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Houston RHP Peter Lambert<\/a> (2-4, 3.57 ERA) faced Chicago LHP Shota Imanaga<\/a> (4-4, 3.38) on Sunday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO — – Christian Walker homered twice with three RBI, and the Houston Astros beat Chicago 3-0 Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[289421,479,352,373,363,99],"class_list":["post-661372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-289421","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-espn","tag-houston-astros","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}