Cincinnati came in buried at 64-72 and mathematically out of it, but Burns has been the one thing keeping this Reds season from being a total loss — an electric young arm doing ace work for a club otherwise picking up the pieces of a shredded rotation.
The two teams had split the first two games of the set violently — Cincinnati stole the opener, Chicago answered with a rout — and Sunday played out the same way early. The Cubs jumped to a 2-0 lead through two innings before the Reds broke through, stacking a 3-run 4th on top of a 3-run 5th to flip a two-run deficit into a three-run lead. Chicago clawed a run back late in both the 8th and 9th, but it wasn't enough.
Cincinnati's rotation has been in triage mode for weeks — Hunter Greene is done for the year after a second Tommy John surgery, and both Brandon Williamson and Graham Ashcraft are still working back from injury in the minors. Burns has had to be the stopgap, and outings like Sunday's are exactly why the Reds have leaned on him as hard as they have. Chicago, meanwhile, is still nursing arms in its bullpen and hoping Swanson's return gives the middle infield a boost down the stretch.
Cincinnati leaves Wrigley having taken two of three, a spoiler role the Reds have nothing left to play for but clearly still enjoy filling. The Cubs, still chasing Milwaukee in the Central, head back out needing to find some traction fast — this series didn't give them any.