Cubs starter Ben Brown came into the game unhittable, and that’s literally.
In his previous start against the potent Milwaukee Brewers, Brown pitched seven hitless innings and manager Craig Counsell caught canned heat for taking him out during a no-hitter.
And Brown owned 14 straight scoreless innings when the game began. He extended that to 15 in the first inning.
That’s quite the ledger for a guy drafted by the Philadelphia Phillies in the 33rd round of the 2017 draft, the 983rd player picked.
Then it ended, in a mammoth way, in the second.
With both teams wearing ‘4′ patches on their uniforms on Lou Gehrig Day, his uniform number, the Reds scored four runs.
In another ‘youneverknow,’ Brown had retired 43 straight batters when he had 0-and-2 counts.
He gave up three straight hits on 0-and-2 counts. Jake Fraley, who had three hits on the day, broke the spell with a 0-and-2 hustle double over the third base bag.
Brown had Tyler Stephenson 0-and-2 and Stephenson singled. Brown then hit Jacob Hurtubise with a pitch to fill the basses.
Brown’s scoreless streak ended on a sacrifice fly by Jonathan India to make it 1-0. Brown struck out Will Benson for the second out. And he had T.J. Friedl 0-and-2, one pitch away from escaping with only one run.
Didn’t happen. Friedl unloaded a three-run home run into the right-field bleachers for a 4-0 lead.
The Reds added a fifth run in the third to provide starter Nick Lodolo with a 5-0 lead.
The Cubs reached Lodolo for three straight one-out singles in the fifth, the third one by Cody Bellinger to score a run.
Lodolo, always the escape masater, coaxed an inning-ending double play started by third baseman Jeimer Candelario knocking down Christopher Morel’s bullet line drive.
The Cubs began the fifth with two singles, but once again scored only one run on a couple of fielder’s choices to make it 5-2, the final score.
Lodolo gave up seven hits, a walk and two hit batsmen, but earned his fifth win against two losses.
Nick Martinez, he of the dancing feet on the rubber, followed Lodolo with two one-hit scoreless innings.
Then closer Alexis Diaz, as is his habit, walked the first batter in the ninth. Then he ended it with three straight outs, the last a strikeout of Seiya Suzuki, the man who hit a grand slam home run in Chicago’s 5-4 win Saturday/Sunday morning.
It was Diaz’s 12th save in 14 opporunties, most of them fraught with drama and danger.
Friedl was playing in only his 10th game this season after suffering first a broken wrist and then a broken thumb. He came back from the thumb injury in half the projected time.
Brown threw him two unhittable curveballs to start his at bat in the second, curves that had Friedl shaking his head. Brown tried it again, another curve. He hung that one over the plate and Friedl gave the ball a seat in the bleachers.
Asked in a post-game interview with Bally Sports Ohio if he was surprised by the location of the home run pitch, Friedl laughed and said, “After those first two? Yeah. After the first two, he let the next one hang and I put a pretty good swing on it.
“I’m starting to get my timing and my aggressiveness back,” he said. “Pitch selection. . .I’m kinda working on that.Everything is coming together and I’m feeling a lot more comfortable.”
After winning the first game Friday and losing the second game, Sunday’s game was the rubber game. It is a situation in which the Reds have been abject failures.
In eight previous tries to win the rubber game to win a series, the Reds lost all eight times. Working on their side, though, was that the Cubs have lost six straight series.
“After taking the opening game, then losing Saturday in a grinder (after a three-hour, 20-minute delay before the game’s start), sitting in the clubhouse all day and the short turnaround (to a day game), it felt like we never left,” said Friedl.
The teams had only 11 hours between games, which meant little sleep.
“But coming out, everybody was ready to go,” he added. “We wanted to get this series win. It was a group effort. Lodolo did amazing, Nick Martinez coming in and shutting them down. We hung on to our early lead and the bullpen was amazing.”
The Cubs, losers in nine of 11, were 1 for 11 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine.
The only current downer is the continued misery of Elly De La Cruz. Right now, Ellymania has turned into Ellydemic. He was 0 for 5 Sunday with four strikeouts. He is in a 5 for 60 (.083) slump with 26 strikeouts. And his 83 whiffs for the season is the most in MLB.
The Reds have won seven of 10 as they open a three-game series Monday night in Coors Field against the Colorado Rockies.
Although the Rockies are last in the National League West, 14 1/2 games out of first place and five games behind the fourth-place Arizona Diamondbacks, they are currently playing passable baseball.
The Rockies recently took two of three from Cleveland, leaders of the American League Central, two of three from Philadelphia, leaders of the National League East and split the first two games with the Los Angeles Dodgers, leaders of the National League West.
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