PITTSBURGH—The hometown kid’s first home run helped the Pirates do what they do best,at least this season — beat the Cubs.Pittsburgh-area native Neil Walker hit a two-run homer to the deepest part of the ballpark in left-center to put the Pirates ahead in the eighth and they beat the Cubs for the seventh time this season, 3-2 on Tuesday.Walker, the Pirates’ first-round draft choice in 2004 who went to the high school that won the Western Pennsylvania district championship Tuesday night, hit a 0-1 pitch from Ted Lilly (1-5) with Andrew McCutchen on and one out.The Pirates improved to 7-1 against the Cubs this season — they’re 15-30 against everyone else — and have won nine of their past 10 against the Cubs overall.Xavier Nady — one of several backups in the Cubs lineup — had four hits, including his third home run, but they lost for the fourth time in five games.Pittsburgh’s Garrett Jones homered for the second consecutive day, Joel Hanrahan (2-1) pitched a perfect top of the eighth and Octavio Dotel a perfect ninth for his 12th save.Lou Piniella, trying desperately to find a lineup that will produce consistent offense, juggled his starters again. The Cubs had scored only nine runs in their previous four games.No fewer than four Cubs regulars did not start – and that doesn’t even include Ryan Theriot, who was recently benched for Mike Fontenot at second base. Nady started for Derrek Lee at first, Jeff Baker replaced Aramis Ramirez at third, Tyler Colvin played center over Marlon Byrd and catcher Geovany Soto sat in favor of Koyie Hill.It didn’t work.The lineup shuffle seemed to pay off when Nady homered with Kosuke Fukudome aboard and one out in the third. It gave the Visitors a 2-0 lead and twice as many runs as it had scored in four of the previous five games.The Cubs’ most recent three wins had come by shutout. Jones erased that possibility when he led off the fourth with his seventh home run.An inning prior, Pittsburgh had an apparent run taken away when Lasting Milledge was thrown out trying to stretch his two-out hit into a triple before starting pitcher Jeff Karstens crossed home plate.For a team with its own offensive troubles — the Pirates, at 15th, rank two spots below the Cubs in the National League in runs — wasting an opportunity to score appeared too much to overcome until the eighth.Lilly hadn’t officially pitched more than seven innings since September, but threw a season-high 112 pitches Tuesday.After one out in the eighth, Lilly walked McCutchen before Walker hit his fastball into the seats to give him at least one hit in six of his eight games since being called up last week.

NOTES—Lilly has gone at least six innings and allowed three earned runs or less in each of his past five starts.