{"id":170905,"date":"2025-09-21T02:09:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T02:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/170905\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T02:09:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T02:09:08","slug":"steers-4th-homer-in-4-games-powers-reds-past-cubs-6-3-and-within-1-game-of-final-nl-wild-card-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/170905\/","title":{"rendered":"Steer’s 4th homer in 4 games powers Reds past Cubs 6-3 and within 1 game of final NL wild-card spot"},"content":{"rendered":"

CINCINNATI — – Spencer Steer<\/a> hit his fourth home run in four games and the Cincinnati Reds<\/a> gained ground in the National League wild-card race with a 6-3 victory over the Chicago Cubs<\/a> on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

The Reds (79-76) are one game behind the New York Mets<\/a>, who lost to Washington<\/a> on Saturday afternoon, for the final wild-card spot – and Cincinnati owns the tiebreaker. The Cubs hold the top wild card and have already clinched a playoff berth.<\/p>\n

TJ Friedl<\/a> and Tyler Stephenson<\/a> also went deep for the Reds, who have won four straight.<\/p>\n

Michael Busch<\/a> and Reese McGuire<\/a> homered for Chicago. The Cubs have dropped their last three after clinching a postseason appearance Wednesday in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

McGuire tied the game at 2 in the fifth inning with a solo shot off Reds starter Zack Littell<\/a> (10-8), but Steer put Cincinnati back on top in the home half of the inning when he drove a first-pitch fastball from Drew Pomeranz<\/a> (2-2) into the stands in left-center for his team-leading 21st homer.<\/p>\n

Steer has gone 6 for 14 with four home runs and 10 RBI in the last four games.<\/p>\n

Emilio Pag\u00e1n pitched the ninth for his 29th save in 35 opportunities.<\/p>\n

Key moment<\/p>\n

Cincinnati outfielder Austin Hays<\/a> had his 15-game on-base streak snapped after he came out in the fifth inning due to back spasms.<\/p>\n

Key stat<\/p>\n

Littell is 2-0 with a 4.62 ERA in nine starts for the Reds since being acquired in a trade with Tampa Bay on July 30. He has allowed three runs or fewer in 20 of his last 28 outings dating to April 16.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Cubs RHP Jameson Taillon<\/a> (10-6, 3.93 ERA) faces LHP Andrew Abbott<\/a> (9-7, 2.88) in the series finale. Cincinnati will go for its first four-game sweep of its NL Central rival since 2018.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP MLB: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/mlb<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI — – Spencer Steer hit his fourth home run in four games and the Cincinnati Reds gained…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":170906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[102408,479,2319,352,363,99],"class_list":["post-170905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-102408","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-cincinnati-reds","tag-espn","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=170905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/170906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=170905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=170905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=170905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}