It was even worse Sunday afternoon for the Reds when once again the bullpen crumbled like the Berlin Wall.
This time the Cubs erased a five-run deficit and scored an 11-8 victory to take the series two games to one.
In those two games, the Cincinnati bullpen pitched 11⅓ innings and gave up 19 runs and five home runs.
The Cubs scored 28 runs in the three games, including 21 in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
The Reds scored nine runs in the first inning of the three games, but only 11 in the other 24 innings.
On Sunday, the Reds led 8-3 after five innings and then:
- Scott Barlow walked the first two Cubs in the sixth and one scored on a wild pitch and a ground ball and it was 8-4.
- Graham Ashcraft retired the first two in the seventh, then the Cubs dinked and doinked three blooper hits and Nico Hoerner ripped a two-run double during a three-run eighth and it was 8-7.
- The first batter in the eighth was catcher Reese McGuire. Regular catchers Miguel Amaya and Carson Kelly were unavailable.
- Kelly was scratched from the lineup with an illness and the Cubs made a hurry-up call and brought up McGuire from Class AAA Des Moines.
The six-year veteran was making his Cubs debut and homered in his first at bat in the second inning on an 0-and-2 pitch from lefthander Nick Lodolo. And he repeated it leading off the eighth against left-hander Taylor Rogers, a 1-and-2 home run.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
McGuire had owned 16 career homers, but none against a left-hander... until Sunday.
The second one tied the game, 8-8.
Rogers then walked Ian Happ on a 3-and-2 pitch and Kyle Tucker singled.
Manager Tito Francona brought in rookie right-hander Luis Mey to face Seiya Suzuki and he crushed a three-run game-winning home run, his third hit of the day.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Asked if it was time for the bullpen and the rest of the roster to regroup, Francona said, “Well, they better hurry. We gotta a 3 o’clock game tomorrow (in Kansas City).
“Some lineups make you pay for mistakes more than others,” he said. “That’s a good lineup and they feel real good about themselves right now.
“With Ashcraft, he gave up one ringing double (the two-run rip by Hoerner), but the other three he made some really good pitches.”
And the rest of the bullpen?
“We just made some mistakes and, again, sometimes you make mistakes against other lineups and you don’t pay as much,” Francona continued. “These guys, when they got a mistake out over the plate they hit ‘em out of the ballpark.”
The Cubs scored two runs off Lodolo in the first inning, but the Reds replied with four in the bottom of the first, including a two-out, run-scoring single by Jose Trevino and a two-out run-scoring single by Will Benson.
McGuire hit his first home run in the second to cut it to 4-3, but the Reds scored four again in the fifth that included a two-run triple by Austin Hays and another run-scoring single by Trevino.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
So Lodolo turned over an 8-3 lead to the bullpen after giving up three runs and six hits over five innings. And the bullpen imploded again.
“They put up good at bats, one through nine,” said Lodolo. “Every guy over there has a good idea of what they are going to do at the dish.”
Lodolo took a deep breath and issued a sigh before addressing where the 26-28 Reds are right now, 6½ games behind the Cubs with nothing but above .500 opponents in their future.
“The way we played this weekend... well, we just didn’t finish games,” he said. “The bullpen has been great for us all year. Those guys have been unbelievable. We just got punched in the mouth at the end of these games.”
And of his outing Sunday and Chicago’s two-run first, Lodolo said, “It was a weird first inning and I didn’t feel like I threw the ball bad at all.
“I was barely missing, but I tried to stay on the attack,” he added. “It was unfortunate that Pete Crow-Armstrong hit one that knuckled (off second baseman Matt McLain’s glove for two runs). It was strange.”
On McGuire’s first home run, Lodolo said, “You saw that (bad) swing on 0-and-1. I wasn’t trying to get too crazy with it, just trying to make another competitive pitch, but obviously I left it up and, yeah, he made me pay for it.”
And McGuire put it up and out.
Even after the Cubs barged ahead, 11-8, in the top of the eighth, the Reds had an opportunity to make their own Chicago-style finish.
In the bottom of the eighth, they put two on with two outs and Santiago Espinal represented the potential tying run.
And he was 4 for 6 for his career against Cubs relief pitcher Brad Keller. Keller struck him out.
Elly De La Cruz, who had two hits, drove in a run and scored a run, led the ninth with a single, but the next three Reds went down without getting the ball out of the infield.
NEXT GAME
Who: Reds at Royals
When: 4:10 p.m.
TV: FanDuel Sports
Radio: 1410-AM, 700-AM
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