CHICAGO (AP) — Pete Crow-Armstrong homered three times and drove in six runs, helping the Cubs beat Sal Stewart and the Cincinnati Reds 17-5 on Saturday.
Alex Bregman, Carson Kelly and Seiya Suzuki also went deep for Chicago, which had lost three in a row and six of eight overall. The bottom of Chicago's lineup — Tyrone Taylor, Pedro Ramírez and Kelly — went 8 for 12 and scored nine runs.
The Cubs improved to 7-2 against Cincinnati this year, bouncing
back after a wild 10-8 loss in the series opener on Friday.
Stewart and Eugenio Suárez homered for the Reds, who dropped to 3-5 on a nine-game trip. Andrew Abbott (6-10) was tagged for seven runs and eight hits in three-plus innings.
Stewart's two-run shot in the third was his 30th homer of the year. He leads NL rookies in homers and RBIs (104).
Crow-Armstrong hit a 435-foot drive to right-center in the first for his eighth career leadoff homer — all this season. He connected for a two-run drive in the second and a three-run homer in the seventh, a 444-foot shot to center for No. 36 on the year.
Crow-Armstrong, one of the front-runners for the NL MVP award, also singled and scored in the fourth. With Reds catcher Jose Trevino on the mound in the eighth, Crow-Armstrong bounced to second. But the Wrigley Field crowd of 39,597 cheered anyway, saluting his first career three-homer game with a long ovation.
Chicago right-hander Kevin Gausman (8-11) struck out seven in five innings, but he was charged with five runs and six hits.
Right-hander Chase Burns (14-3, 2.77 ERA) starts for Cincinnati on Sunday night, and left-hander Shota Imanaga (8-9, 3.78 ERA) pitches for Chicago in the finale of the weekend set.
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