The Cincinnati Reds had a four-run lead and their ace on the mound. It was an ideal start to facing the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs in the first of six head-to-head games through June 1.

Hunter Greene was scheduled to throw a maximum of 80 pitches in what was his return appearance from the 15-day injured list, but he was still on pace to get through five innings until Chicago’s Nico Hoerner worked a 12-pitch at-bat in the fourth inning.

Hoerner eventually popped out to Elly De La Cruz to end the fourth inning, which had already seen Greene surrender a two-run homer to Pete Crow-Armstrong, which cut Cincinnati’s lead to 4-2. But Hoerner succeeded in pushing Greene to 83 pitches. That was all Reds manager Terry Francona and his coaching staff would allow from Greene in his first start since May 7.

“They made him work and you could tell he was starting to get tired,” Francona said.

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With Greene out of the game, Cincinnati ended up deploying six relievers, one of which was Ian Gibaut. He came on to begin the seventh inning.

Gibaut was making his second appearance since April 25. The intervening weeks were spent on the injured list. Through little fault of Gibaut’s, the seventh inning, and the game, started to unravel on his watch. In fact, the game was flipped upside down in that frame as the Cubs posted six runs and took an 8-6 lead.

A go-ahead grand-slam home run in the seventh inning by Crow-Armstrong was punctuated with a wild bat flip after he watched from home plate as his long fly clanked off the outside of the right-field foul pole. That critical blow off Reds reliever Tony Santillan (0-1) put the Cubs ahead for the first time in the game, 8-6. Chicago would go on to win, 13-6, before a crowd of 30,120.

Crow-Armstrong (3-for-5) hit two homers in the game, including a two-run shot in the fourth inning off Reds starter Hunter Greene. Crow-Armstrong drove in six runs by game’s end.

“Wish I could have got that (home run) pitch back but given that it’s pretty much the best-hitting team in baseball, I’ll take it,” Greene said.

Suffice it to say Friday’s result wasn’t how Cincinnati wanted to continue a stretch of schedule heavy on the Cubs and other NL Central opposition. That stretch included coming off losing two of three3 to the Pittsburgh Pirates on the road.

The Reds’ dropped to 24-26 while the Cubs improved to 31-20. Cincinnati also fell to 6.5 games back of Chicago in the NL Central entering Saturday’s second game of the series. There’s plenty of time left in 2025 to make up that deficit in the standings, but multiple four-run leads squandered on Friday isn’t part of the recipe for optimism.

“It doesn’t matter, probably, how much (tonight) rates on the hurt scale,” Francona said. “We lost, and we didn’t want to, so we’ve got to quickly regroup, find a way to beat them tomorrow… If that (seventh) inning effects us tomorrow − no, it won’t.”

The Reds jumped on Chicago early on Friday. Each of the first six Cincinnati batters reached in the bottom of the first inning as they ran out to a 3-0 lead, but the inning could have been bigger as they didn’t score after having bases loaded and no outs.

Austin Hays (2-for-5, RBI, run scored) scored for 4-0 in the third inning after he led off the inning with a triple off the upper-half of the wall in left-center field.

Crow-Armstrong halved the Cubs’ deficit in the fourth inning on his first homer, but the Reds tacked on for a 6-2 lead in the fifth inning. Spencer Steer (3-for-4, one RBI) and Tyler Stephenson (1-for-4, one RBI) both scored in the frame. 

With one out and a runner on first, Reds second baseman Matt McLain fielded a seemingly-routine grounder and attempted to tag out Hoerner on his way to second. But Hoerner dodged the tag play and the batter was safe at first. And the next batter, Ian Happ, singled to load the bases when Santiago Espinal failed to reel-in an over-the-shoulder grab in short left field on a pop-up. 

Of the McLain play, Francona said the Reds needed to make sure they got at least one out on the play.

Of Happ’s bloop single, Francona said the could-have-been catch by Espinal “would have been a hell of a play.” But the Reds didn’t get it.

Gibaut recorded just one out and gave way to Santillan.

Against Santillan, a Kyle Tucker single made it 6-4, a Seiya Suzuki single loaded the bases again, and then Crow-Armstrong sent his grand slam on a path that led the ball into the foul pole for 8-6.

The Cubs mashed their way across the finish line.

Suzuki (3-for-5, three RBI) drilled a three-run, line-drive homer to left field off Reds reliever Brent Suter in the eighth inning.

With Luis Mey on the mound in the ninth inning, Dansby Swanson hit a two-run homer to right field to put the Cubs’ lead out of reach.

After Cubs starting pitcher Matthew Boyd labored through four innings, the Reds scored two further runs in the fifth off reliever Julian Merryweather, who recorded just two outs. But Chicago’s bullpen blanked Cincinnati over the final four innings. Reliever Chris Flexen (2-0) earned the win for his 1 1/3 innings of perfect pitching, and Ryan Pressly recorded the last three outs.