The Cubs and Reds have been playing the same game over and over this week, and it always starts the same way: Imanaga cruises, the middle relief corps finds a way to let Cincinnati back in, and Chicago has to claw the lead back late. Elly De La Cruz has been the guy doing the damage.
DE LA CRUZ MISSLE
That kind of contact off a quality Imanaga start is exactly what's been driving Barstool's baseball crowd nuts about this stretch. Steven Cheah summed up the whole pattern in one line after watching it happen again.
Cubs middle bullpen wastes another quality start from Shota Imanaga
Bregman made it a moot point. According to WRAL/AP, his two-run homer off an 82 mph sweeper in the 7th inning broke a 3-3 tie and lifted the Cubs to a 5-3 win over the Reds at Great American Ball Park, with the ball landing in a fan's hands down the left-field line. The Cubs' bullpen still needed to close it out, but this time the offense covered for them.
They let Bregman get hot.
Then he did it again the next night. Chicago rolled to an 8-4 win over Cincinnati, and Bregman went deep for the ninth time this season, a 387-foot shot that made it back-to-back games with a homer.
BREG BOMB
This is exactly the version of Bregman the Cubs paid for. He signed a 5-year, $175 million deal with Chicago after opting out of his Red Sox player option, turning down Boston's competing offer to head to Wrigley. Two homers in two nights against a division rival is the kind of return that makes a $35 million-a-year price tag look like a bargain instead of a gamble.
Zoom out and the Cubs' first half looks exactly like these two games: a mess that somehow keeps working out. Chicago closed the first half 11 games above .500 but still 5.5 games back in the division, per Barstool Chicago's rundown of the standings. A pen that keeps blowing quality starts against a team like the Reds isn't a first-half problem the Cubs can just outslug forever — eventually that bill comes due, and Bregman can't hit a homer in every game.