Jay Bruce’s homer gives 5-4 victory to Cincinnati Reds against Chicago Cubs – MLB Update
Jay Bruce and Brandon Phillips made desperately needed contributions for Cincinnati Reds to beat Chicago Cubs by 5-4 at Wrigley Field, Chicago on Friday, May 6.
The victory took an extraordinary effort and some lucky plays by the Reds. It was this aspect that Phillips referred to. "We made it tough on ourselves. I think we just tried to keep the crowd, the Reds fans, on the edge of their seats," Phillips joked.
Matt Garza, the starting pitcher for Chicago, had to face mounting pressure to contain the Cincinnati offence, as all his attempts proved unsuccessful. It was Bruce who capitalised on his punishable fastball and scored a homer.
"I felt like it was going to be a good day," Garza said. "They did a great job of just extending innings. In that fourth inning [Joey] Votto puts his bat out there and hits the ball up the middle. And then Phillips the same thing, just throws his hands out,
a seeing eye single through the right side. Just bear with it and go with it."
Garza threw a shut-out inning followed by Edinson Volquez who has recently struggled to perform better. While the first two innings remained scoreless, Aramis Ramirez opened the account of Chicago with a single on Volquez’s fastball.
However, the Reds did not let Chicago’s defence maintain the 1-0 lead. In the fourth inning, the score drought ended with a flow of three runs that came by the bat of Bruce, as he homered to right to reverse the Cubs’ lead and enable the Reds to take the
lead to 3-1.
Geovany Soto of the Cubs brought the lead down to 3-2 for his team with a single off of Volquez’s fastball. The Reds jumped back into the game and score two more runs in the fifth inning. Joey Votto singled to centre and Phillips singled to right to put
the team on the safer side, as surprises were yet to come.
Ramirez scored the second single of the game, making it 5-3 for the Cubs. Volquez gave up another run in the sixth inning to bring the game to a close 5-4 score. Cincinnati then kept changing the pitching line-up so as to avoid defeat in a winnable game.
When Francisco Cordero came out to pitch for the Reds in the last inning, he was successful in containing the Cubs’ hitters and took a 5-4 victory for Cincinnati.
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