The Chicago Cubs will spend the All-Star break holding a National League wild-card spot, and they earned the position Sunday by pulling away late for an 8-4 win over the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park.
The game was tied when it reached the seventh inning, and Chicago took it there. Pete Crow-Armstrong lined a go-ahead RBI single for a 5-4 lead, and two batters later Alex Bregman drove a three-run homer to left off reliever Pierce Johnson to make it 8-4. Bregman finished 3-for-5 with a season-high four RBIs, the kind of middle-of-the-order night the Cubs paid for when they signed him.
Matthew Boyd handled the rest. The left-hander worked 6 1/3 innings and allowed four runs to improve to 5-1, and the Chicago bullpen closed the door from there, with Jacob Webb recording his fifth save. Crow-Armstrong reached three times and scored twice, and Michael Busch added two hits.
Cincinnati got its power from Eugenio Suárez, who homered and drove in two, and the Reds matched the Cubs with nine hits. But starter Andrew Abbott lasted only four innings and walked three, and once the game got to Cincinnati’s middle relief it slipped away. The series finale gave Chicago two of three in the set.
The standings tell the story of two clubs headed in opposite directions into the break. Chicago sits 54-42, five games behind Milwaukee in the NL Central but firmly in the wild-card picture. Cincinnati, at 43-52 and 15 1/2 back, has some sorting to do over the coming days about whether it buys or sells.
For fantasy managers, Bregman is the obvious name to ride out of the break, and his RBI production has stabilized after a slow stretch. Crow-Armstrong’s multi-hit, run-scoring line reinforces his value as a top-of-order asset in all formats. On the Cincinnati side, Suárez remains a source of cheap power worth holding, but Abbott’s short outing and three walks make him a matchup-only start until his command settles.
