St. Louis Cardinals at Cincinnati Reds: Final Score & Recap
Line Score
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| STL | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 11 | 0 |
| CIN | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 13 | 1 |
The Story
The Cincinnati Reds walked off the St. Louis Cardinals 6-5 in ten innings on August 17, 2026, at Great American Ball Park, completing a dramatic comeback that began with the DiamondIQ model's estimate sitting at a pre-game 51 percent in favor of the home side and reaching 100 percent by the final out. The Cardinals held a 5-3 lead entering the bottom of the ninth, and St. Louis reliever Peter Strzelecki appeared positioned to close it out, but Dane Myers altered the course of the game entirely with a home run that swung win probability by 48.9 percent, the single largest play of the contest, knotting the score at five and forcing extra innings.
Cincinnati had already shown signs of life in the sixth inning, when Michael Toglia's double off Andre Pallante added 15.4 percent to the Reds' win probability and set the stage for Héctor Rodríguez to follow with a single that pushed the swing to an additional 23.6 percent, fueling a three-run sixth that trimmed what had been a Cardinals advantage. Toglia's involvement cut both ways, however, as his flyout in the eighth off Strzelecki proved to be the most damaging at-bat for Cincinnati, costing the club 18.7 percent in win probability and temporarily steadying St. Louis's grip on the lead heading into the ninth.
Elly De La Cruz delivered the decisive blow in the tenth, doubling off Justin Bruihl to produce a 35.9 percent win-probability swing and plate the winning run. De La Cruz finished as the game's second-most impactful batter by WPA at plus-35.7 percent, with a RE24 of plus-1.4 that led all position players, while Myers topped the batting leaderboard at plus-48.9 percent WPA. On the mound, Zach McCambley was Cincinnati's most effective reliever by WPA at plus-3.6 percent, whereas Brock Burke was the hardest-hit Cardinals arm at minus-9.5 percent. The Reds finished with 13 hits against St. Louis's 11, committing the game's only error, in a contest that required ten innings and a series of late momentum shifts to resolve.