Cincinnati Reds at Chicago Cubs: Final Score & Recap

The Chicago Cubs routed the Cincinnati Reds 17-5 at Wrigley Field on August 29, 2026, in a game that was never truly in doubt after the early innings. The DiamondIQ model entered with a 63% home win probability for Chicago and watched that figure climb steadily to 100% by the final out. Chicago's offense generated 19 hits without committing an error, while Cincinnati managed only 7 hits and added a costly miscue of their own.

The decisive swing in win probability came in the top of the third inning, when Reds third baseman Sal Stewart connected on a home run off Kevin Gausman, shifting win probability 12.5 points in Cincinnati's favor and briefly making things interesting. However, Carson Kelly answered in the bottom of the fifth with a home run off Julian Garcia that swung the probability 10.0 points back toward Chicago, and Pete Crow-Armstrong's home run off Andrew Abbott in the bottom of the second had already added 8.6 points to the Cubs' ledger earlier in the game. Eugenio Suárez also went deep in the top of the second off Gausman for a 6.8-point swing, but those Cincinnati bursts were consistently answered or buried by Chicago's sustained offensive production, particularly in the seven-inning stretch that saw the Cubs score in five of nine frames, including a four-run seventh.

Among individual performers, Pete Crow-Armstrong led Chicago with a plus-13.4% WPA and plus-4.8 RE24, while Alex Bregman posted plus-12.7% WPA and plus-2.8 RE24. Stewart was Cincinnati's most impactful bat at plus-14.6% WPA and plus-1.9 RE24, though his efforts were not enough to overcome the Cubs' depth of production. On the mound, Ryan Zeferjahn paced Chicago's relievers with a plus-2.8% WPA, helping to close out a lopsided afternoon at Wrigley.