The Cubs hit four home runs in a 9-5 victory over the Reds on Tuesday at Wrigley Field.



CHICAGO – As Bronson Arroyo rode into Wrigley Field on Tuesday, he made sure to look at Lake Michigan for a sign of what was awaiting him when he got to the park. The look of the water may have well been a skull and crossbones.


“When you drive past the lake, you know which way the wind is blowing and you see it howling a little bit, it's going to be a tough ballpark to pitch in,” Arroyo said. “Their guys have to pitch in it as well, so it's not like an excuse, but you know it's going to be tough for a guy like me who pitches to contact and gets a lot of fly balls.”

Arroyo gave up three runs in a 28-pitch first inning as the Reds fell to the Cubs 9-5 at Wrigley Field, losing their fourth straight game and putting their season record back at .500, 19-19.


The two teams combined to hit seven home runs – four for the Cubs and three for the Reds.

“On a day like today, sometimes it's who can get the most balls up in the air,” Reds manager Bryan Price said. “You don't really want that to be your game plan or approach. You want to hit the ball hard. They got some balls up there.

"Look, they swung the bat, this isn't to say what they did was a fluke or they beat us because of the wind, that's not the case.”

The wind helped, especially on home runs by University of Cincinnati product Ian Happ off of Arroyo and shortstop Addison Russell off of Robert Stephenson. Happ’s home run landed in the front row in left-center and Russell’s landed in the basket in right-center. On the other hand, even had the wind been blowing in, there probably wasn’t a park that would have held the 462-foot blast by Middletown native Kyle Schwarber.

Shortstop Zack Cozart gave the Reds an early 1-0 lead on his second home run of the season, sending the first pitch he saw in the first inning into the stands in left. It was Cozart’s fourth straight game with a home run at Wrigley Field, the longest such stretch by a Cubs opponent since Albert Pujols did so in 2007.

The lead didn’t last long. Anthony Rizzo sandwiched a single around walks to Kris Bryant and Ian Happ before third baseman Jeimer Candelario singled in the first run. After a pop-up for the second out, catcher Wilson Contreras hit a double off the wall in center to give Chicago a 3-1 lead.

“The way the ball it reacted and he hit that ball, on a normal night, Billy (Hamilton)’s got that and that ball hit the wall like a missile, man,” Arroyo said. “You're just dealing with elements that are harder to come back, and that's just the way it is.”

Tucker Barnhart’s 444-foot home run in the second pulled the Reds within one, but Schwarber launched his bomb in the bottom of the inning to pad the Cubs’ lead.

Chicago would score in every inning but the third and fourth and never trailed after the first.

After his rough first, Arroyo limited the damage until Happ’s solo shot in the fifth.

Arroyo said the wind on the field is actually going the opposite of the wind in the air, blowing at his back into the plate, making it more difficult to control his pitches.

“It's like trying to go around a sharp turn on black ice, you turn the car to the left and it just goes straight,” Arroyo said. “It makes the breaking ball a little bit harder to have some sharpness to it. I was missing just barely with a bunch of pitches, which put me behind in the count a lot.

"It's one of those days, it's a hard place to pitch when the wind is blowing the way it is. Their guys just did a better job of keeping the ball in the ballpark than we did.”

