PITTSBURGH - Corey Patterson had five hits and the Chicago Cubs scored eight runs in the first inning of a 12-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates Wednesday night.

Sergio Mitre pitched six shutout innings for his first major league win and the Cubs had another big night on offense. Patterson went 5-for-6 with a first-inning double and an RBI, and Moises Alou and Derrek Lee had three RBI each.

The Cubs have won six of eight - four straight against the Pirates - while averaging 8.2 runs in their last 10 games.

Mitre (1-0), ahead 8-0 before throwing a pitch, struck out seven and limited the Pirates to four singles. He was 0-1 with a 5.91 ERA in his first five career games.

The Cubs have been especially rough on the Pirates, outscoring them 21-1 in the first two games of the three-game series and 39-9 over their last four games. So far in the series, Pirates starters Ryan Vogelsong and Josh Fogg have allowed 13 earned runs and 12 hits in five innings.

Fogg (0-3) didn't retire any of the six batters he faced, though he didn't get much help from a leaky infield defense. Fogg has a 17.00 ERA in three starts and might be headed back to the minors in an effort to get him back on track.

Fogg has been especially ineffective against the Cubs, allowing 14 earned runs and 12 hits in four innings. He allowed four homers in a 10-5 loss Thursday at Wrigley Field.

Fogg kept the ball in the playing field this time, and that might have been his biggest mistake. After walking Todd Walker and Sammy Sosa around Patterson's double in the first, Alou followed with a two-run single.

Aramis Ramirez reached when first baseman Craig Wilson took the throw well off the bag on a seemingly routine grounder, and Lee hit a two-run double.

Wilson also threw home late on Walker's grounder later in the inning, failing to get anybody instead of taking the certain out at first and helping extend the Cubs' biggest inning in the last two seasons. They twice scored seven runs in an inning last season.

Wilson was supposed to start in right field, but was shifted to first when Randall Simon (hamstring) was a late scratch.

The only thing missing from the Cubs' offense was a homer; they hit 30 in their first 14 games, well ahead of the club's single-season record pace of 212 in 1998.

The Pirates didn't score until Abraham Nunez's RBI single in the ninth against Joe Borowski, the Cubs' fourth pitcher.