Greene Fans 12, Reds Blank Cubs 4-0 Behind Two-Homer Night

Hunter Greene was untouchable on Friday, throwing 7.0 innings of three-hit, zero-run ball with 12 strikeouts to lead Cincinnati past Chicago 4-0. The Reds needed every bit of it — and then some — as the offense delivered all four runs in a two-inning burst that made the outcome feel inevitable by the seventh.

The story of the night was Greene, and it isn't close. Twelve strikeouts across seven innings, three hits allowed, one walk — that's a performance that looks like an ace operating at a different altitude than everyone else on the field. Chicago's Shota Imanaga was solid in his own right, going 5.0 innings and allowing just one earned run on seven hits with five strikeouts, but the Cubs offense gave him nothing to work with. Seiya Suzuki went 2-for-4 and was the only Cub who appeared to solve anything, but the team finished with a goose egg on the board.

The game turned in the fifth inning when Elly De La Cruz launched a 400-foot home run to left center, pushing Cincinnati ahead 1-0. That swing moved the home win probability from 52% to 69% — a 17-point lurch that effectively handed the Reds the driver's seat. De La Cruz finished 2-for-5 with that homer, an RBI, and two runs scored, and appears to have been the engine that got this thing moving. Cincinnati then put the game away in the seventh with a two-run sequence that left no doubt: Sal Stewart hit a sacrifice fly to center, scoring De La Cruz again to make it 2-0, and then JJ Bleday crushed a 417-foot two-run shot to center — scoring Spencer Steer, who had gone 3-for-4 on the night — to push the final to 4-0.

Bleday's blast, at 417 feet, was the exclamation point: 1-for-3 on the night, but his one hit was a two-run homer that doubled the Reds' lead in a single swing. Emilio Pagan followed Greene with a perfect eighth — three strikeouts, no hits, no walks — and Brock Burke closed it out in the ninth, allowing one hit but no runs. Cincinnati's pitching staff combined to allow just four hits and zero runs across nine innings. The Cubs, for their part, never found an answer.