Choo finds his hitting stroke at Wrigley Field

CHICAGO -- After starting out 3-for-26 over the first seven games of the Reds' 10-game road trip, center fielder and leadoff hitter Shin-Soo Choo put a good game together in Friday's 6-5 win over the Cubs, going 2-for-3 with an RBI single, a double and two runs scored.

Choo followed that up by leading off Saturday's game against the Cubs with a home run.

Choo, who came into Saturday having reached safely in 27 of his 29 games, had been going through his first hitting slump of the season.

"It was a tough road trip in the four games in Washington and three games in St. Louis. I only had a couple of hits," Choo said. "Baseball is a long season, 162 games. A couple of times, it will happen. Good players on good teams [separate from] bad players on bad teams in how quickly they come out of slumps. I worried about it. I thought about it. I tried to think positive. I didn't have many strikeouts. The good thing was to have contact."

Choo is playing at Wrigley Field for the first time since 2008 with the Indians as the right fielder. Adjusting to a new position, Choo realized the old ballpark has several quirks. On Friday, that included flocks of seagulls that descended on the outfield grass.

"There are the birds and the wall is concrete. That's different," Choo said. "I just checked everything before the start of the game. But the only difference is the wall isn't padded. At game time, you just play. You don't think about it or worry about it."