It’s bad enough to be swept by a division rival in baseball.
It’s much worse when that sweep to simultaneously bolster one rival’s win streak and another’s losing streak.
And it’s something else entirely when that sweep is capped off by the sort of blunder that would make grade school baseball prospects blush.
The Cincinnati Reds lost to their National League Central rivals, the Chicago Cubs, to the score of 8-3 on Thursday.
Not only did the Cubs sweep the Reds, but the win at Wrigley Field has secured Chicago its longest home win-streak since 1935, according to ESPN.
The loss was the seventh straight loss for the Reds, and ninth straight victory for the Cubs, who now lead the NL Central.
That’s all enough to sting Reds fans plenty, but compounding matters is the fact that this freefall came after a 20-11 start, which was good enough for first place in the NL Central at the time.
The Reds are now in last place in the division — and winless in May going into Thursday’s stinging loss, as pointed out by Fox News — which is all bad enough.
But Thursday’s loss added insult to injury, after a boneheaded blunder from the Reds in the fourth inning all but guaranteed that their woes would continue for another game.
Already down 2-0 to the Cubs, the Reds had a golden opportunity to get out of a very sticky situation (bases loaded, nobody out) when they appeared to be set-up for a double play.
But when the Reds baseman stepped on third base and rifled the baseball to the home plate, his catcher appeared to forget a rather important rule in baseball.
Take a look for yourself and see if you can catch it before the announcer does:
This just can’t happen in the big leagues, man. pic.twitter.com/XKKszGAJTi
— Reds Daily (@RedsDaily4) May 7, 2026
Without diving into baseball jargon and rules, because the third baseman had stepped on third base, which takes away the force at home. That means that the Reds catcher needed to tag the Cubs runner — not catch the ball while on home plate.
“Just a middle school mistake, right here,” lamented one of the announcers during the replay.
He added: “You have to be paying attention to what’s going on ahead of you.”
The loss left the Cubs with a 26-12 record going into Friday’s tilt of games, and the Reds with a 20-18 record.
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