CINCINNATI -- Seiya Suzuki finished a great series in spectacular fashion Sunday.
The Cubs designated hitter belted a tie-breaking three-run homer to cap another late-inning rally past the Reds in an 11-8 win at Great American Ball Park.
Suzuki finished the series 7-for-12 with a pair of three-run homers. Suzuki reclaimed the MLB lead in RBIs with 49, surpassing teammate Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Suzuki also recorded his seventh game of at least three RBIs, matching Teoscar Hernández of the Dodgers for the second-most in the Majors this season, behind Arizona’s Eugenio Suárez (8).
Reese McGuire homered in his first at-bat from the ninth spot in the order in the second inning, then belted his second homer in the eighth to tie the game for his first career multi-homer game. That set the stage moments later for Suzuki’s 116 mph, three-run rocket to the seats in left off a Luis Mey 97 mph sinker for a go-ahead homer.
“It felt good, obviously, in that situation and those situations to hit a home run,” Suzuki said. “It feels really good. But, with that pitcher, he has a really good sinker, has confidence in it, so I was able to take competitive pitches and hit the pitch I want. So it was a good at-bat.
“I feel like I'm not a hitter with that much power. So, the pitchers that throw hard, I'm using the velocity and squaring up the baseball. I think that's the end result of what happened today.”
Cubs manager Craig Counsell could sense another big Suzuki moment was at hand when he got the count to 3-1.
“Just a lot of quality contact first, and then that ball today was just hit so hard, I mean, that ball was hit very, very hard,” Counsell said of Suzuki’s 14th homer. “He took a really good swing on the foul ball. It's a sinker guy.
“And so you see that foul ball that kind of popped up behind the third-base line, and you're like, ‘He's out front of that.’ And then he worked the count to his advantage and got a pitch out over the plate.”
On Friday, the Cubs wiped out a pair of four-run deficits. And on Sunday, Chicago came back from 8-3 down to take two of three in the series. Late-inning magic was the trick, as the Cubs scored 11 runs over the final three frames on Friday, and scored seven runs over the seventh and eighth in the finale on Sunday.
Drew Pomeranz struck out two in a scoreless seventh to earn the win while Daniel Palencia pitched a scoreless ninth for his second save in three chances.
There were some themes that repeated themselves over the course of the high-scoring series: The Reds getting to Chicago starting pitching in the opening inning, Crow-Armstrong coming up with a clutch run-scoring hit, the Cubs beginning a late-inning rally in the seventh inning and Suzuki tormenting Cincinnati pitching.
All four happened again on Sunday, with a twist.
The Cubs actually took a 2-0 lead off Cincinnati starter Nick Lodolo when Crow-Armstrong used a little English on a single off the glove of a leaping Matt McLain for a two-out, two-run single.
For a third straight game, the Reds were able to do damage in the first inning, tagging Ben Brown for four runs, with the help of back-to-back walks at the start. Austin Hays began his big day with an RBI single. But the biggest hit was a two-out single to right from Jose Trevino that extended the rally. Will Benson drove in a run with a single and Brown’s wild pitch scored a fourth.
“I'm having periods of time where I'm the best pitcher I've ever been and then I'm having times where I'm obviously struggling,” Brown said after giving up eight runs on seven hits and two walks in 4 1/3 innings. “And there's two directions you can go. I can just have the worst season of all-time, or I can fix my attitude and my effort and really lock into what needs to be done, and I'm going to choose that route.
“I'm just so thankful for the team for getting the win today. And that's the outlook right now, but, yeah, there's definitely something I need to change. And I'm sure everyone here is aware that it's not a secret. So whatever I have to do to do that, whatever the avenue is to do that, I'm willing to do it and just keep on going.”