Dateline: Cincinnati
Pete Crow-Armstrong did it again.
As he did on Saturday, he greeted Reds starting pitcher, Chase Burns this time, with a long home run to lead off the bottom of the first inning.
This time instead of leading to a lopsidedly win, Hector Rodriguez hit a three-run home run and Tyler Stephenson cracked a two-run home run to allow the Reds to post a 7-5 win over the Chicago Cubs and take the series two games to one.
Burns allowed a run in the second inning too. Ian Happ, Nico Hoerner and Michael Conforto singled to produce the run.
Shota Imanaga held the Reds quiet for three innings but he is a bad fit from the Cubs perspective against the Reds.
Most of the Reds offense comes from home runs. They are next to last in baseball with a team average of .228, rank 27th with an on-base-percentage of .307 and are dead last with a .218 average with runners in scoring position. However, they are fourth in baseball with 183 home runs.
Imanaga was tied for fourth in baseball with 31 home runs allowed and now is tied with Jeffrey Springs of the Athletics with 33 after the game.
That is where rookie Hector Rodriguez came in. Rodriguez hit 27 home runs in the International League with the Louisville Bats. He was called up by the Reds on August 3 and made his first appearance on August 4.
He struggled out of the gate. He doubled for his first hit on August 7. He was 1-for-9 after three games. After 11 days his average slipped to .083. Since then, Rodriguez is hitting .324. He had three home runs in the first eight games of the road trip, when he faced Imanaga with Eugenio Suarez and Matt McLain on base with two outs in the fourth. The rookie hit an 0-1 pitch into the right field bleachers for his fourth major league home run and 31st overall.
Fielding is behind Rodriguez hitting and that led to the Cubs tying the score against Burns with a unearned run.
Happ walked and Hoerner singled to start the bottom of the inning against Burns. Pedro Ramirez flied to Rodriguez in right. Happ tagged and Rodriguez throw got away from McLain and Happ scored.
The Reds offense assaulted Imanaga in the fifth.
Dane Myers hit his sixth home run to lead off. Elly De La Cruz beat out an infield hit and felt tightness in his left quad. He stayed in but was pulled in the bottom of the seventh. He will be examined today (083126).
Stephenson hit his 14th home run to put the Reds up 6-3. Stephenson has now hit six of them in August.
Sal Stewart hit his 31st home run of the season off Trent Thornton. Stewart is now ninth on the MLB home run list ahead of Shohei Ohtani. He leads baseball with 105 RBI. To give perspective the Reds have 359 RBI as a team. Stewart has 29% of them.
He is seven home runs behind Frank Robinson’s Reds rookie record set in 1956.
Burns was working on his fourth scoreless inning in the sixth. De La Cruz booted Alex Bergman’s ground ball to start the inning. Happ singled but Burns struck out Howrner and Ramirez flied out.
Manager Terry Francona brought in Brock Burke to face lefty Conforto. Cubs manager Craig Counsel countered with Tyrone Taylor to pinch hit. Taylor grounded out to De La Cruz to end the inning.
Burns pitched 5 2/3 innings, allowed three runs, two earned on six hits and a walk. He struck out seven and left with an ERA of 2.79 and a 15-3 record.
He is one off the Major League pace for wins and ninth in ERA slightly ahead of former Red and MLB leading 16-game winner Sonny Gray.
Luis Mey gave up a run in the eighth.
Emilio Pagan got two quick out then gave up Crow-Armstrong’s 38th home run, giving him five against the Reds in the last two games of the series. He is two behind former Cub and Middletown HS grad, Kyle Schwarber.
Pagan finished the job getting Seiya Suzuki to fly out to Myers against the Ivy. This time Myers squeezed it to secure the game.
It was Pagan’s 19th save and third in a row. In his last 16 appearances he has three wins and 12 saves.
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