Pair of defensive miscues undoes strong start from Lodolo

CHICAGO -- There was nothing friendly about the confines of foul territory in right field for the Reds and Will Benson vs. the Cubs on Saturday at Wrigley Field.

Two eighth inning defensive plays -- including Benson's -- during a scoreless game with no margin of error provided both Cubs runs in a 2-0 loss that evened the three-game series.

Reliever Graham Ashcraft had two runners on and one out in the bottom of the eighth inning when Seiya Suzuki lifted a pop up to right field. The wind took the ball towards the small sliver of foul territory as Benson pursued. As he neared the wall, the ball was lost in the sun and dropped for an RBI double.

“He’s battling the sun. The wind is taking it away from him and the wall is this far," manager Terry Francona said, holding his hands close together. "I went back and looked at it. It was kind of an impossible play.”

All the factors that can make Wrigley Field a defensive challenge converged in one play.

"When I looked up as I’m running closer to the line, because of that angle where the sun was, the closer I got to the line, the more the ball went into the sun," Benson explained. “With that angle, if I go crashing in, I definitely won’t be able to see the ball. At the same time, if I go crashing in -- there’s a brick wall.”

Earlier this month in Atlanta, Reds rookie left fielder Tyler Callihan broke his left arm crashing into a padded wall in foul territory.

"It's a really tough play, especially at that point of the game," Cubs left fielder Ian Happ said. "Sometimes that ball to right field is going to end up 30 rows deep in the stands. Sometimes, like that, it's going to stay. So we're lucky to have a lot of experience out here and be able to deal with it."

Two batters after Suzuki's double, Ashcraft had two outs with the bases loaded when Dansby Swanson grounded to shortstop. Elly De La Cruz took too much time to make his throw and Swanson beat it out for an RBI single.

“The clock’s got to be a little bit better just knowing that kid got down the line. We tell our guys that all the time that if you do that, you’re going to run somebody into a mistake," Francona said.

The Cubs have outscored the Reds, 25-0, after the seventh inning in the five games in the season series.

Reds starter Nick Lodolo gave up five hits and two walks with five strikeouts over his six scoreless innings. Through 12 starts, Lodolo has a 3.10 ERA.

Cincinnati boasts four pitchers with ERAs at 3.50 or lower in Lodolo, Andrew Abbott (1.51) Hunter Greene (2.63) and Nick Martinez (3.48). In the Reds' past 17 games, the rotation's ERA is 2.32. The team's record in that stretch is 9-8.

The Cubs were 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position and Lodolo navigated much of that traffic. With better Reds defense also helping, he effectively used his changeup to induce three groundball double plays.

“It was big," Lodolo said. "They keep you in the game longer and also got us out of those jams. It felt good today, my changeup. I probably threw it a ton.”

In another sign of just how nutty baseball can be, Cincinnati scored 26 runs in their first four games against Chicago over two weekends but came up empty Saturday. Not helping either club was a stiff wind blowing in to keep the ball in the ballpark.

In the fourth inning, De La Cruz hit a 102.9 mph drive to center field with an expected batting average of .770. The ball died and was easily caught short of the wall.

“A couple of guys squared some up for them and for ourselves," Benson said. "Elly hit one really well … had nothing to show for it. It was one of those days, we had the approach. We’re going to go for line drives today. But that’s baseball, you know what I mean? You win some. You lose some.”

In the Reds' case too often, they don't score at all when they lose. Saturday's blanking tied them with the Pirates for the Major League lead with nine shutout losses. The club record is 24 in 1908, during the dead-ball era (before 1920). They had 23 shutouts in 1920, and their most shutouts since 1947 was 17 in 2014.

"We definitely wanted to pull it through there. We didn’t," Lodolo said. "We’ve got a chance again [Sunday] to win the series. We’ve got to come out tomorrow ready to roll.”