Given the circumstances and postseason implications, the Cincinnati Reds would have settled for a win of any variety. Ugly, accidental, controversial − the Reds simply wouldn’t have cared what it looked like. They just needed to win.
The win the Reds ended up with Sept. 18 against the playoff-bound Chicago Cubs accounted for plenty of style points. They’ll take that, too. The game was one of the finer outings of pitcher Hunter Greene’s career as he limited the Cubs to just two bases runners through six and 2/3 innings before his bid with history was broken up by Chicago’s Seiza Suzuki’s two-out double in the seventh inning.
The Suzuki hit was one of very few blemishes on Greene’s outing as he guided the playoff-hopeful Reds to a 1-0 victory at Great American Ball Park before a crowd of 18,532.
The nine-inning, complete-game shutout victory was the first of Greene’s career, and his 2025 record improved to 7-4.
Big picture, the victory saw the Reds improve to 77-76. With nine games to play for Cincinnati, it remained 2.0 games back of the New York Mets in the race for the third and final National League wild card berth.
Greene protected a third-inning run plated by Cincinnati. Austin Hays doubled to begin the inning, and Will Benson drove him in when he hammered a double of his own to right-center field.
Cubs pitcher Colin Rea (10-7) eventually became the hard-luck loser as a result of that run. One day after the Cubs clinched at least a wild card bid in the National League playoff race, Rea went seven innings, allowed just four hits and struck out a career-best 11.
Prior to Suzuki’s hit, the Cubs’ lone base runners reached on an Elly De La Cruz error in the fifth inning and a walk by Greene in the sixth inning.
The Reds also managed to dispense of the Cubs player who reached on the De La Cruz error, too.
A Pete Crow-Armstrong line drive toward the first base area deflected off Reds’ first baseman Spencer Steer’s glove and knocked the helmet off Moisés Ballesteros. Then the ball caromed into center field. There, T.J. Friedl gathered the ball and fired it to second base to catch Ballesteros on the force-out.
Greene encountered little resistance after Suzuki’s hit. He retired the final seven batters he faced in order to clinch the game.
The Enquirer will update this report.