CINCINNATI – The Reds were leading by one run in the eighth inning with Noelvi Marte on first base and Elly De La Cruz up to bat. The next batter, catcher Tyler Stephenson, asked manager Terry Francona if he wanted him to bunt if De La Cruz reached base.
“I said, ‘No, I want you to hit it in the third row.’ He hit it in the third row,” Francona said. “He’s very coachable.”
Stephenson’s two-run home run to the opposite field off Cubs right-hander Andrew Kittredge broke open a tight game.
Spencer Steer and TJ Friedl each hit solo homers earlier in the night, helping the Reds win their fourth straight to gain ground in the NL Wild Card race with a 6-3 victory over the Cubs on Saturday night.
The Reds (79-76) moved within one game of the Mets (80-75) for the third and final Wild Card spot with seven games remaining. The Mets lost in 11 innings to the Nationals earlier in the day.
On a pressure-packed night at Great American Ball Park, Stephenson’s 12th homer of the season allowed the announced crowd of 31,756 to exhale a bit.
“I was just kind of blacking out in the moment,” Stephenson said of running the bases. “A lot of emotion going on. Just kind of screaming. You get to a point where you get a little lightheaded from screaming, so I probably stopped.”
The Reds learned that the Mets had lost around the time Michael Busch hit a third-inning solo homer that gave the Cubs a 1-0 lead.
Reds batters kept the pressure on Cubs starter Javier Assad, whose pitch count rose to 74 through four innings.
With the score tied 1-1 in the third, Gavin Lux worked an 11-pitch at-bat that ended in a strikeout. But two batters later, Will Benson delivered a two-out, RBI single to put the Reds ahead.
After Reese McGuire’s homer tied the score 2-2 in the fifth, Steer, who homered twice on Friday night, put the Reds back in front with his 21st homer.
Friedl led off the seventh against Aaron Civale with his 13th homer to make the score 4-2. It was his first homer since Sept. 8.
McGuire’s RBI double off Chase Burns trimmed the Reds’ lead to 4-3 in the eighth.
With runners on first and third and one out, Tony Santillan fanned Ian Happ and coaxed Moisés Ballesteros into a slow roller toward De La Cruz, who charged the ball and threw to first to end the threat.
“He didn’t hit it very hard,” Santillan said. “I was tracking him, tracking Elly, and I’m like, ‘This is going to be very close.’ Then we got him, and it was a great feeling. I tried not to make the moment too big. Just go out and do my job.”
Littell (10-8) pitched five innings, allowing two runs on solo homers by Busch and McGuire. The 10 victories are an extension of the right-hander’s ongoing single-season career high.
“You get to a certain point and we think we’ve got enough in the bullpen, and that’s good enough,” Francona said. “He got us to that point. There has to be some measure of urgency. In June, he would have gone back out there. It’s not June.”
In the ninth, Emilio Pagán allowed a two-out double to Matt Shaw, before striking out Seiya Suzuki for his 29th save.
After a gut-wrenching 5-4 loss to the Mets on Sept. 5, the Reds dropped to six games back in the Wild Card race after losing 10 of 13. Barely two weeks later, things have changed considerably.
“It’s super close,” Stephenson said. “The vibe and the energy in the clubhouse is great, and it’s going to continue. It’s extra motivation. Just try to win every game.”
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