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The Big Pod Machine: Will upcoming Reds-Cubs series define season?

Reds Beat Reporter Gordon Wittenmyer and Sports Reporter Pat Brennan discuss the current state of the Cincinnati Reds.

The Cincinnati Reds simply couldn’t handle the Chicago Cubs‘ bats in the late innings. 

For three games, the Cubs made life for Reds’ relief pitchers anxious and uncomfortable in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. Chicago plated 21 runs in those frames over the course of the series, which produced a shocking comeback win on Friday, a flirtation with another comeback on Saturday, and then another come-from-behind victory in Sunday, May 25th’s series finale.

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Cincinnati was in position to take the series off the NL Central-leading Cubs but surrendered a five-run lead in an eventual 11-8 loss at Great American Ball Park. 

A crowd of 32,822 attended the contest, which pushed the attendance for the series over 100,000.

The Cubs capped their comeback in the eighth inning against relievers Taylor Rogers and Luis Mey. A leadoff solo home run by catcher Reese McGuire off Rogers tied the contest at eight. Rogers was lifted from the game without having recorded an out when two further Cubs reached. Then, against Mey, Seiya Suzuki (3-for-4) hammered a line-drive, three-run home run down the left-field line for an 11-8 lead. 

“Some lineups make you pay for mistakes more than others. This is a good lineup and they feel really good about themselves right now,” Reds manager Terry Francona said. “We just made mistakes that, again, sometimes if you make them against other lineups, you don’t pay as much. These guys, when they got a mistake out over the plate, they hit it out of the ball park.”

Rogers’ record dropped to 1-2 on the year, and the Reds dropped to 26-28.

The win by the Cubs gave them the three-game set, and pushed the Reds to 6.5 games back in the NL Central. That’s not an insurmountable deficit given that it’s still May. But Cincinnati is seeing its deficit grow against in-division opposition, and Sunday marked back-to-back series losses to divisional foes (the Pirates were the other) during a critical span of 12 of 15 games against the NL Central. 

“I think they were just able to get more going at the tail end of games,” Reds left fielder Austin Hays said. “They just were able to beat us late. We’ve got to find a way just as a whole to win those close, late games and come out on the other side of those late-inning comebacks and those dogfight games where we’re going back and forth.”

Cincinnati will travel to face the 29-25 Kansas City Royals at Kauffman Stadium next. It’s the only series over the current stretch of 15 games that isn’t against an NL Central team. The teams will begin their three-game set Monday at 4:10 p.m. ET. 

The Reds plated four runs apiece in the first and fifth innings, respectively. Those bursts installed leads of 4-2 and then 8-3.

After the Cubs jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning off Reds starter Nick Lodolo, Hays put the Reds on the scoreboard with an RBI single. Then, Jose Trevino’s RBI single with two outs scored Elly De La Cruz, who reached on a fielder’s choice.

Will Benson, the reigning NL Player of the Week, floated a single to right field to plate Hays for a 3-2 Reds lead. Finally, Cubs starter Ben Brown’s wild pitch allowed Trevino to score from third, completing the fortuitous Reds at-bat.

After the taxing first inning, both starting pitchers settled down to varying degrees. Brown retired the next nine Reds he faced in order while Lodolo worked through traffic. He allowed a two-out solo home run to McGuire in the second inning, which was the first of two homers by the nine-hole hitter, and that was the final run against Lodolo (4-4, no decision), who went five innings.

“They put up good at-bats, one through nine,” Lodolo said. “Every guy over there, they’ve got an idea of what they’re trying to do at the dish so, you’ve got to make pitches and keep coming after them.”

Brown found trouble again in the fifth. De La Cruz singled home a run for 5-3, Hays tripled to drive in two more runs and Trevino doubled to make it 8-3.

Brown (3-3, no decision) was charged with all eight runs after going 4 1/3 innings.

But the Cubs came on strong late, just as they had on Friday and Saturday.

Scott Barlow and Graham Ashcraft pitched an inning apiece in the sixth and seventh innings, conceding one and three runs, respectively. All the damage against Ashcraft occurred with two outs as Dansby Swanson, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Nico Hoerner and Justin Turner combined for four consecutive base hits and three runs.

Afterward, Francona suggested that Ashcraft pitched well, and that Crow-Armstrong’s double was the only hard-hit ball off Ashcraft.

What had been a comfortable lead for Cincinnati became uncomfortable at 8-7 in the eighth inning. That’s when Rogers took to the mound. He allowed the leadoff homer to McGuire (2-for-5) to tie the contest at eight.

Suzuki, whose home run was his second three-run shot of the series, took care of the rest of the offense for Chicago.