Elly De La Cruz went 2-for-3 with a home run, a stolen base and four RBIs to lead the Cincinnati Reds to a 6-4 victory over the visiting Chicago Cubs on Saturday afternoon.
TJ Friedl also had two hits and Santiago Espinal scored twice for Cincinnati, which snapped a three-game losing streak.
Andrew Abbott (4-0) picked up the win as he allowed one run on six hits over 5 2/3 innings. He walked two and struck out two. Despite allowing a homer to Carson Kelly to begin the ninth, Emilio Pagan bounced back to notch his 13th save.
Justin Turner added a solo homer and Matt Shaw had three hits — including a pair of doubles — for Chicago, which had its three-game winning streak come to an end.
Cubs starter Colin Rea (3-1) surrendered six runs on seven hits over five innings. He struck out eight and walked three, both season-highs, while throwing a season-high 108 pitches.
Cincinnati jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on De La Cruz’s ninth home run of the season, a 387-foot line drive into the right-field bleachers.
Chicago cut the lead to 2-1 in the third inning when Turner led off with his first home run as a Cub, a 406-foot drive to left-center.
The Reds extended the lead to 3-1 in the fourth inning when Gavin Lux led off with an opposite-field double down the left-field line, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on Will Benson’s sacrifice fly to the wall in center.
Cincinnati added three more runs in the sixth inning. De La Cruz stroked a two-run single, stole second and scored on a single by Spencer Steer.
The Cubs cut the lead to 6-2 in the seventh when Kelly led off with a single, advanced to third on a Shaw double and scored on Ian Happ’s groundout. They got another run closer in the eighth when Seiya Suzuki led off with a double to left-center, moved to third on a groundout and scored on a sacrifice fly by Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Kelly made it 6-4 in the ninth when he cracked his ninth homer of the season off the foul pole in left. One out later, Shaw lined a double to left to bring the tying run to the plate. Pagan bounced back to strike out Happ and get Kyle Tucker to fly to right to end the game.
