Michael Busch and Dansby Swanson hit solo home runs to lift the visiting Chicago Cubs to a 5-2 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The win allowed the Cubs (86-69) to pull a full game ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies for the top wild-card playoff spot in the National League. The Phillies lost 10-3 to the Mets earlier in the day. The San Diego Padres (86-69) also won to remain tied with the Cubs.<\/p>\n
The Reds fell to 72-83. The teams will play the rubber game of the series Sunday.<\/p>\n
Cubs starter Matthew Boyd (9-5) gave up two hits and two runs (one earned) in five innings. The left-hander walked two and struck out four in 71 pitches.<\/p>\n
Ryan Rolison picked up his third save by getting the final out.<\/p>\n
Reds starter Nick Lodolo (3-6) gave up seven hits and three runs in seven innings. The left-hander walked two and struck out one in 90 pitches.<\/p>\n
The Cubs started the scoring in the second after Nico Hoerner led off with a double to center. Busch was hit by a pitch. Hoerner moved to third on a fielder’s choice by Carson Kelly and scored on a deep sacrifice fly by Matt Shaw.<\/p>\n
Chicago made it 2-0 in the fifth after Swanson led off with an infield single. Swanson moved around to third on groundouts by Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman and scored on a single to left by Seiya Suzuki.<\/p>\n
Boyd had allowed only a walk and had retired 11 straight before running into trouble in the fifth.<\/p>\n
Eugenio Suarez led off with a walk. JJ Bleday followed with a one-out single to right. Suarez headed to third on the play and shortstop Swanson uncorked a wild throw that allowed Suarez to score and make it 2-1.<\/p>\n
Ke’Bryan Hayes tied the game with a two-out single to center to bring home Bleday.<\/p>\n
After Busch made it 3-2 in the sixth with his 20th homer, Chicago scored an insurance run in the eighth. Pinch hitter Ian Happ walked with one out and went to second on a wild pitch.<\/p>\n
Hoerner drove him in with a single past shortstop for a two-run Cubs lead.<\/p>\n
Swanson’s 19th homer gave the Cubs a three-run lead in the ninth.<\/p>\n
–Field Level Media<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 Field Level Media. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n
This story was originally published September 19, 2026 at 8:37 PM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Busch and Dansby Swanson hit solo home runs to lift the visiting Chicago Cubs to a 5-2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-441883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}