{"id":898499,"date":"2026-09-20T04:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T04:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/898499\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T04:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T04:06:08","slug":"boyd-ends-6-start-winless-streak-cubs-beat-reds-5-2-to-close-on-playoff-berth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/898499\/","title":{"rendered":"Boyd ends 6-start winless streak, Cubs beat Reds 5-2 to close on playoff berth"},"content":{"rendered":"

CINCINNATI — – Matthew Boyd<\/a> ended a six-start winless streak, Dansby Swanson<\/a> hit his first home run since coming off the injured list and the Chicago Cubs<\/a> moved closer to their second straight playoff berth by beating the Cincinnati Reds<\/a> 5-2 Saturday.<\/p>\n

Michael Busch<\/a> hit a tiebreaking home run off Nick Lodolo<\/a> (3-6) in the sixth inning for a 3-2 lead, reaching 20 homers for the third time in four seasons.<\/p>\n

Swanson added a ninth-inning drive against Zach McCambley<\/a>, Swanson’s home run and first since Aug. 12. Swanson returned Friday from a strained left oblique that had sidelined him since Aug. 16.<\/p>\n

Chicago (86-69), which leads the major leagues with 214 home runs, began the day tied with Philadelphia and San Diego for the three NL wild cards.<\/p>\n

Boyd (9-5) had been been 0-4 since beating Kansas City on Aug. 9. He allowed two runs – one earned – and two hits in five innings as part of a four-hitter.<\/p>\n

Lodolo gave up three runs and six hits in seven innings for the Reds, who have lost nine of 12.<\/p>\n

Matt Shaw<\/a>‘s sacrifice fly in the second and Seiya Suzuki<\/a> RBI single in the fifth built a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Cincinnati tied the score in the bottom half on Swanson’s run-scoring throwing error at shortstop and . Ke’Bryan Hayes’ RBI single.<\/p>\n

Nico Hoerner<\/a> added a run-scoring single in the eighth.<\/p>\n

Up Next<\/p>\n

Cubs LHP David Peterson<\/a> (8-8, 5.11) and Reds LHP Rhett Lowder<\/a> (6-11, 5.79) start Sunday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

See AP’s full MLB coverage here<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI — – Matthew Boyd ended a six-start winless streak, Dansby Swanson hit his first home run since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[467140,64,63,5158,5257,794,591,85],"class_list":["post-898499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-467140","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-espn","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}