CHICAGO — For the third night in a row, the Chicago Cubs walked off the reeling Cincinnati Reds. The latest loss culminated with a two-out, bases-loaded walk by left-hander Brock Burke for the 7-6 Cubs victory in 10 innings on Wednesday.
In the top of the ninth, the Reds rallied for four runs to take a 6-4 lead. Matt McLain scored their final run, tagging all the way from second base on a two-run sacrifice fly, and Tejay Antone, a pitcher making his first appearance after a third Tommy John surgery, was in line for the win, even getting an Automated Ball-Strike reversal for the first out of the bottom of the ninth.
Then it all fell apart. Ashcraft gave up a single to seven-hole hitter Carson Kelly and then the tying home run to Pete Crow-Armstrong. Both hits came on full counts.
Burke nearly got out of the 10th but walked Michael Busch with the bases loaded, ending the game and extending the Reds’ losing streak to six games.
Reds manager Terry Francona had trouble describing just how he felt about the loss, scrambling for words in what would on the page look a lot like indecipherable scribbles.
“It would be difficult …” Francona said before pausing. “You know you’ve got to finish the game, but it still felt good to take that two-run lead. Elly (De La Cruz) hits that ball to the wall, and McLain with some really good base running. He scored right when he left second base; he gave himself a chance. You hope that would hold up.
“It didn’t.”
Spencer Steer (7) is greeted by Will Benson after leading off the ninth with a home run that drew the Reds within one run. (Geoff Stellfox / Getty Images)
To use a more current pop culture phrase popularized in the United States by the TV show “Ted Lasso,” “it’s the hope that kills you.”
The Reds left Great American Ball Park on the last day of April owning a 20-11 record and sat alone atop the National League Central Division standings. April’s showers have brought not flowers to the Reds, but dourness.
Since the start of the month, the Reds are 0-6. All six of those losses have been away from their home on the Ohio River. All six of them have been against divisional opponents. All six have been heartbreaking and grotesque in their own particular fashion, one unique heartbreak after another.
Wednesday, though, it all seemed to be coming together, even before the team got to Wrigley Field:
• The morning after being carted off the field, closer Emilio Pagán received positive news that his left hamstring was strained, not torn. Hearing that he’ll be out four to eight weeks wasn’t great news, but it was better than his assumption that his season was done.
• Fellow reliever Pierce Johnson was activated from the bereavement list, rejoining the team days after Graham Ashcraft returned from his own stint on the bereavement list.
• Reliever Tejay Antone completed his comeback to the major leagues following his third surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow. Returning from three UCL surgeries isn’t unprecedented, but there’s not much precedent for coming back after a third surgery.
The Reds even had positives during the game:
• Recently moved from the top of the lineup to the bottom, McLain responded with a single in his first at-bat, snapping an 0-for-19 streak that dated to last month. He hit his third home run of the season in the fifth inning, executed a bunt in the team’s four-run ninth and then showed off the base running and baseball IQ that have kept him in the lineup despite his struggles at the plate by tagging up as soon as the ball left De La Cruz’s bat in the ninth, rounding third without hesitation to score.
• Spencer Steer extended his hitting streak to nine games with a ninth-inning home run to pull the Reds to within a run of the Cubs and start the team’s rally.
• Antone not only pitched, but he also struck out two of the three batters he faced: Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman and right fielder Seiya Suzuki. Of the three batters Antone faced, only Ian Happ put the ball in play, but center fielder TJ Friedl made a leaping catch into the ivy-covered brick wall for the second out of the inning.
• After losing an ABS challenge in the first inning, the Cubs had three challenges reversed to their benefit before catcher Tyler Stephenson challenged Ashcraft’s 1-2 pitch to Busch leading off the ninth. The call was reversed, putting the Reds two outs from snapping the losing streak.
They couldn’t close it out.
Reds designated hitter Nathaniel Lowe walked to lead off the 10th, but Steer grounded into a double play and Will Benson grounded out, leaving the extra runner at third.
And Burke couldn’t extend the game. After intentionally walking two batters to load the bases, his first three pitches were balls. He then threw a strike, but missed on the next one.
“Just a miss,” Burke said of his final pitch. “(I) tried to throw it down the middle and pushed in too much.”
In the skid, Reds pitchers have walked 39 batters, six more than any other team.
In the end, the Reds are searching for answers and not finding any good ones. The only one remaining is that there are 125 games left in the season. Whether that provides solace or torment is the question.
“This is what we do. This is all I do. It’s not fun,” Francona said. “I know you can sit back and look at the big picture — and I know a month from now, we’ll look back and say, ‘God, that was a s—-y week, and now we’re OK.’ But when you go through it, it’s hard.”