It’s a headline that’s grammatically difficult to write. It’s a concept that’s rationally hard to stomach.
The Cincinnati Reds have lost back, to back, to back games to the Chicago Cubs to begin this four-game series, and they’ve been walked-off in all three of them. The last two of them have even come in extra-innings.
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Wednesday’s will be the one that ends up the most difficult to stomach, at least for now. That’s assuming the depths to which this 6-game losing streak overall continues. After trailing early and often, the Reds got a standout performance from reliever Tejay Antone when they needed it most, the former fireballer back in the big leagues over two years after the most recent of his three Tommy John surgeries.
To say his inning had an ‘uplifting’ effect would be putting it mildly. There was pep in the step of the defense behind him, and it carried right over to their bats in the Top of the 9th inning. Spencer Steer socked a homer to lead the charge, JJ Bleday chipped in with a vital RBI single to tie the game, and Elly De La Cruz plated a pair with a sacrifice fly so deep into RF that it caused Seiya Suzuki to fall at the wall.
The Reds had roared back to claim a 6-4 lead, and they turned things over to their closer to close it out. Except, of course, closer Emilio Pagan had hurt his hamstring the previous night and been put on the shelf for at least a month, and instead Graham Ashcraft was summoned to do a job he’s got almost no experience doing before. He left a meaty pitch over the plate, Pete Crow-Armstrong lifted it to left-center, and it landed in the first row of the Wrigley Field stands for a game-tying homer…
A game-tying homer that would have literally only been a homer in Wrigley. Only Wrigley.
The Reds then failed to plate the Manfred Man in the Top of the 10th. Then, they walked the bases loaded intentionally in the Bottom of the 10th to set up more appealing matchups for pitcher Brock Burke only for Burke to then walk in the game’s winning run unintentionally and wrap things up.
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Even after sleeping on the result, it’s hard to think this series of events won’t end up haunting the Reds over the course of the season. The NL Central is simply too good for it not to, and the Reds have already seen their electrifying (and razor’s edge) start to 2026 see them fall to 4th place within their own division thanks to this brutal run of form.
Something is going to need to change to bust them out of it. The sentiment surely seemed to suggest that would be Antone’s return, but not even that changed the tides. Getting Eugenio Suarez back soon may help, though it will also once again return the flaws and overlaps in the team’s roster construction.
The Reds are 20-17 on the season with over 3/4ths of the season left to play, yet the ship couldn’t possibly seem more leaky than it does right now.
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