ATLANTA — The sequence happened so quickly, Colin Rea was left wondering if he should have stepped off the mound at some point for a reset to gather himself.
Austin Riley’s tying home run to open the fifth inning Tuesday night at Truist Park kick-started a four-run Atlanta Braves rally as the game got away from Rea in a span of only 11 pitches in the Chicago Cubs’ 5-2 loss.
Riley bested a sinker that Rea put up and in on the hands for the solo homer. It was a tip-the-cap kind of pitch; Rea put the ball where he wanted.
The Braves didn’t stop there, though. Dominic Smith followed with a first-pitch single off Rea, who recovered to force Ha-Seong Kim to pop up for the first out. The inning didn’t get any easier for Rea.
Cubs pitcher Colin Rea works in the first inning against the Braves on Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
In a battle against Mike Yastrzemski, he tried to put the lefty away with a full-count elevated fastball that was fouled off. Rea went to his slider and uncorked a hanger over the plate that Yastrzemski hit for a no-doubt, two-run homer.
A Drake Baldwin double and an Ozzie Albies walk ended Rea’s night before he could get out of the fifth.
“I just felt like in that inning, we didn’t really get them off balance much,” Rea said. “They had some pretty comfortable swings.
“When they’re putting good swings on good pitches, sometimes it can make it tough to still trust it and still go after them. And sometimes you think you’ve got to make a better pitch, or like a perfect pitch, and you don’t necessarily have to do that. You just have to continue to execute.”
The Cubs didn’t provide much offensive support for Rea. They managed just one hit, a solo homer from Alex Bregman in the fourth.
That inning provided their greatest chance of blowing the game open with Braves right-hander Grant Holmes issuing three consecutive walks after the home run. Moisés Ballesteros’ 107.1 mph ball up the middle, the hardest-hit ball by a Cub on the night, was snagged by Kim for a forceout at second. A run scored on the play, but the Cubs managed only one baserunner the rest of the game.
The Braves bullpen combined to retire 14 consecutive batters to end the game.
“This is the best pitching staff in baseball right now, so we’ve got to capitalize on our opportunities,” manager Craig Counsell said. “I thought that was a pretty big play (on Ballesteros), a really hard ground ball up the middle, and they get an out on that play. If we can keep the momentum going in that inning, maybe we get the big inning that they got. But you’re not going to get a ton of chances against a real good pitching staff.”
Bregman’s homer, among strong at-bats by the third baseman all night, was the lone bright spot. The Cubs (27-15) have two runs and nine hits over their last three games, all losses, since their 10-game winning streak ended. The Cubs had six outs on balls hit with an exit velocity over 100 mph, including two by Bregman.
“It’s baseball. Show up tomorrow and hit it hard again,” Bregman said. “Because the likelihood is if you keep hitting the ball hard, you’re going to have success. So I feel like if we worry about that and not the process, it’s not good.”
The Cubs could use more consistent power production from Bregman, whose home run was his first since April 24. He has just four extra-base hits in his last 69 plate appearances.
Over the course of the seven-pitch at-bat against Holmes, Bregman kept focused on his body’s positioning.
“I’ve been kind of flying open,” he said, “so I was just thinking about staying close, then staying connected and being early and those kind of things — probably should have been a little bit more focused on the pitch and everything like that, but it was kind of a little internal, I guess.
“Just trying to take a good swing at a pitch to hit and end up squaring one up there. So hopefully, as those mechanics start trending in the right direction and cleaning up, it’s a lot more of an external thought.”