lost to Washington<\/a> on Saturday afternoon, for the final wild-card spot \u2014 and Cincinnati owns the tiebreaker. The Cubs hold the top wild card and have already clinched a playoff berth.<\/p>\nTJ Friedl and Tyler Stephenson also went deep for the Reds, who have won four straight.<\/p>\n
Michael Busch and Reese McGuire 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 (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 (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 RBIs 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 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 (10-6, 3.93 ERA) faces LHP Andrew Abbott (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><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI (AP) \u2014 Spencer Steer hit his fourth home run in four games and the Cincinnati Reds gained…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":242814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[34482,42771,591,1271,5048,32978,129473,1819,1818,5439,5606,1266,1822,1305,1574,1573,8754,5056,62,34481,19895,67,132,68,69804],"class_list":{"0":"post-242813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-andrew-abbott","9":"tag-austin-hays","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-chicago-cubs","12":"tag-cincinnati-reds","13":"tag-drew-pomeranz","14":"tag-emilio-pagn","15":"tag-il-state-wire","16":"tag-illinois","17":"tag-jameson-taillon","18":"tag-michael-busch","19":"tag-mlb","20":"tag-mlb-baseball","21":"tag-new-york-mets","22":"tag-oh-state-wire","23":"tag-ohio","24":"tag-reese-mcguire","25":"tag-spencer-steer","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-tj-friedl","28":"tag-tyler-stephenson","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-unitedstates","31":"tag-us","32":"tag-zack-littell"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115239789911605892","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}