Eugenio Suarez delivered the swing the Reds needed, and Emilio Pagan finished the job.
Suarez’s opposite-field blast in the sixth inning put Cincinnati ahead for good in a 4-3 win over the Brewers, a result that kept Milwaukee from completing the sweep. The Reds also picked up their 70th win of the season and snapped a rough week by getting their first victory of the week.
The game started with Chase Burns working under his new limited workload, and the early returns were mixed. In his second start in the modified three-inning role, Burns wasn’t as sharp as he had been against the Dodgers, when he threw a hitless outing with five strikeouts. This time, Joey Ortiz got him for a two-run homer in the second inning, the main damage in a line that ended with three innings, five strikeouts, three walks, two hits and 56 pitches, with only half of them strikes.
Cincinnati’s offense was quiet for most of the afternoon. Through five innings, the Reds had only three hits.
Then Elly De La Cruz started the sixth with a single, and Stewart followed with another hit to put runners on the corners. Milwaukee turned to Antonio Senzatela, but Suarez made the move hurt immediately, driving a pitch the other way at 105 miles per hour off the bat for a 3-2 Reds lead.
De La Cruz kept piling up the good stuff. His single stretched his on-base streak to 20 games, and he finished with his eighth multi-hit game of September. He’s also hitting .436 in September.
The lead didn’t last forever. Brandon Williamson, who had been excellent out of the bullpen after Burns exited, ran into trouble the second time through the order.
He had been dominant through his first three innings in relief, striking out two and not allowing a baserunner. Then Jake Bauers opened the next turn with a leadoff home run, Christian Yelich added a single, and Williamson had to navigate out of the inning with a ground-ball double play and a pop-out.
Cincinnati got back in front in the eighth. De La Cruz and Stewart struck again with back-to-back hits, and after Suarez popped out, Tyler Stephenson lifted a sacrifice fly against Abner Uribe to bring De La Cruz home and make it 4-3.
Milwaukee still had one more push in it. Brock Burke faced a threat in the eighth when the first two batters reached on a single and a throwing error, but he escaped with help from a line drive that turned into a double play at second and then a caught stealing to end the inning.
Pagan hadn’t been in a save situation since September 6, but he got the call in the ninth and handled it. The closer earned his 23rd save of the year and shut the door on another Brewers rally.
Suarez’s homer was the 349th of his career, and he’s now batting .304 over his last seven games with three homers and a .429 on-base percentage.
The Reds head back home Monday for a four-game set against the Dodgers, with Nick Lodolo set to start the opener against two-time Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. First pitch is at 6:40. After that, Cincinnati hosts the Cubs over the weekend before finishing the season with a road trip to face the Atlanta Braves and the Toronto Blue Jays.
In Other News...
Reds Rotation Has A Problem That Goes Beyond Injuries
The Reds have spent much of 2026 trying to patch together a starting rotation that has been hit hard by injuries to Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo, but the trouble goes deeper than simply missing names on the injury report. Even with Chase Burns giving them a bright spot, the group as a whole has not resembled a rotation that can consistently carry a staff through games and keep Cincinnati in control deep into the night.
The numbers point to a more troubling issue: the Reds have been near the bottom of the league in two-strike strikeout rate, opponent OPS with two strikes and average exit velocity in those counts. In other words, even when pitchers get ahead, they are not finishing at-bats often enough, and hitters are still doing damage in spots where the advantage should belong to the pitcher. [Read more 🡒]
Reds Pitching Collapse Is Making Brewers Dominance Even Harder To Watch
The Reds keep finding new ways to make a bad stretch look worse, and the latest chapter came in Milwaukee. Cincinnati has been outscored 34-1 in recent games, capped by a 20-0 loss to the Brewers that went down as the worst shutout defeat in franchise history. Even with Matt McLain scratched and Ke'Bryan Hayes and Juan Brito making defensive adjustments, the Reds could not stop the bleeding, and the sight of the division leader pulling away has only made the slide sting more.
Saturday brought a different kind of frustration, with the offense showing some life in a 13-9 loss while Hunter Greene had a rough outing and Eugenio Suarez went deep. The problem for Cincinnati is that one spirited night at the plate does little to change the bigger picture as the club approaches elimination from playoff contention. Chase Burns is lined up for the next start, and the Reds are trying to stabilize things before the seasons final stretch gets away from them entirely. [Read more 🡒]
Reds Pitching Collapse Just Hit An Alarming New Low
A bad stretch can usually be explained away by one rough inning, one untimely error or one tired bullpen night. What the Reds are living through right now is something far more alarming. Their 13-9 loss to the Brewers on Wednesday extended a historic collapse on the mound, with Cincinnati getting rocked again after a pair of blowouts had already sent the staff into dangerous territory. Brady Singers outing only added to the damage, as he lasted four innings and gave up eight runs while the Brewers kept piling on.
The bigger issue is the scale of the damage, which now feels impossible to ignore in the context of a season that still has plenty of baseball left. Milwaukee put up a franchise-record 33 runs across two games against the Reds, a jarring number even by the standards of a bad week. Cincinnati has to find a way to stop the bleeding soon, because the rotation and bullpen are no longer just struggling - they are making the wrong kind of history. [Read more 🡒]