By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

Former George County standout Justin Steele produced yet another strong outing on the pitching mound for the Chicago Cubs Monday night.
However, the Cubs still couldn’t find a way to get him a win.
 San Francisco’s Wilmer Flores drew a bases loaded walk in the bottom of the ninth inning to cap off a wild comeback as the home-standing San Francisco Giants snapped a five-game skid with a 5-4 victory over the Cubs Monday night.
Steele was stellar on the hill, working just over seven stanzas while striking out nine and walking just one while scattering six hits. Seeking to end a streak of 14 straight winless starts dating back to last season, he allowed the Giants just a pair of solo home runs and left the game with one out in the bottom of the eighth and a 4-2 lead.
“Any inch you give,” Steele told MLB.com after the game, “Teams are gonna take a mile. It’s a tough league. They don’t hand out wins. All I can do is continue to pitch well and put the team in the best possible position that I can to win the ballgame. All I can do is continue to show up and do that. If I do my job, I feel good about it.”

““We’ve just got to show up and win ballgames,” Steele added. “Winning will solve everything. We’re one winning streak away. That’s kind of how I look at it.”

The Cubs dropped to 14-18 in one-run games this season and stand five games below .500 (37-42). 
But the southpaw Steele is looking more and more like the pitcher who was an All-Star last season and heavily in the conversation at the end of the campaign for the National League Cy Young Award last season. In his last six outings, Steele has registered a 1.38 ERA. During a recent solid six-start stretch, Steele is 0-1 and the Cubs have gone 2-4 as a team.
Unfortunately, in his latest outing, the Cub bullpen couldn’t make the two runs lead stand up for five more outs.
“There’s no question we left runs on the bases, for sure,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell told the Associated Press. “We could have had five, six, seven on the board by just moving the ball forward and [we] didn’t do it. And we’ve got to do better at that. That was a game that we should have broken open. And that cost us.”