A national-TV audience witnessed a Cincinnati Reds performance that served as a reminder of what made the club a popular offseason pick to return to the postseason in 2026.
Facing the Philadelphia Phillies, Cincinnati slugged its way to an 11-4 victory July 8 at Great American Ball Park on a night when All-Star starting pitcher Chase Burns lasted five innings but was still good enough to improve to 11-1 on the season.
The Reds improved to 42-49 on the season, and secured at least a split of the season series with the Phillies for a third consecutive year. With the Reds having won three of five games against Philadelphia so far in 2026, the clubs meet for the final time in the regular season July 9 (7:10 p.m).
The start was Burns’ last for the Reds prior to departing for Philadelphia where he’ll participate in the July 14 MLB All-Star Game. While the Reds passed the official halfway mark of the season more than a week ago, Burns reached the ceremonial halfway point with a 2.54 ERA over 102 2/3 innings.
Burns was 2-0 in the first half of the year against a resurgent Phillies team that’s been one of the strongest in baseball over the last two months. Over his five innings of work on July 8, he walked six and allowed three runs but his teammates did more than enough to pick him up.
“I was panicking a little bit. You could tell he was throwing his fastball and you could tell − he was leaving a lot of fastballs up,” Reds manager Terry Francona said. “Way up. And he had maybe two strikeouts and six walks. That’s not ‘Chase-like.’ But I really wanted him to get through that fifth, but I wasn’t gonna let him go much longer.”
The Reds accumulated their first seven runs via home runs, including four homers in the fourth inning alone. Noelvi Marte (2-for-5, four RBI’s) and All-Star Sal Stewart (2-for-4, three RBI’s) led the charge for Cincinnati offensively.
The Reds’ display of power against the Phillies reached historic proportions for Stewart, who homered twice to notch his 18th and 19th homers of the year. Stewart’s second home run broke Frank Robinson’s record for the most home runs by a Reds rookie prior to the All-Star break.
Robinson hit 18 homers before the break during the 1956 season. Told after the game about breaking Robinson’s record, Stewart said he wasn’t previously aware of his feat.
“That’s the first I’ve kind of heard that,” Stewart said of breaking the Reds’ record. “It feels good to be in the company of that stature of a player (Robinson). Definitely grateful.”
Stewart’s second homer was also part of a set of back-to-back-to-back homers in the fourth inning. Elly De La Cruz (2-for-3, two RBI’s, two walks), Stewart and JJ Bleday combined for homers in three successive at-bats against Phillies reliever Tanner Banks. It was the 15th set of back-to-back-to-back homers for Cincinnati in baseball’s expansion era (since 1961).
While not part of the run of consecutive homers, Marte homered earlier in the fourth inning off Alan Rangel, a reliever who started the contest for Philadelphia.
By the end of the fourth, the Reds had cancelled out a 2-0 deficit and led 7-2.
“That was a fun inning,” Francona said. “Drove some balls the other way and got rewarded for it. You’ve heard me say it a million times but that’s good. When they started to climb back, as they can, it was good to have a little bit of an answer and spread it (the score) out a little bit.”
The Phillies added runs in the fifth and sixth innings to pull within 7-4. Middletown native Kyle Schwarber (1-for-5) batted in the sixth with two outs and a chance to tie the game, but Cincinnati reliever Brock Burke struck him out to end the threat.
Schwarber would later launch his second homer of the series and his MLB-leading 32nd of 2026 in the ninth inning off reliever Rhett Lowder. The victory was all but secured for Cincinnati by that point, though.
“It was a big win against a really, really, really, really good team,” Stewart said. “It felt good to win like that.”
In the bottom of the sixth, the Reds padded their lead against Phillies’ leverage reliever Jose Alvarado when Bleday (2-for-4, two RBI’s) drove in a run with an RBI single for an 8-4 lead. Marte later hit a bases-clearing double to go up 11-4.
Now 2-3 on the ongoing nine-game homestand leading into the All-Star break, the Reds could clinch a series win July 9 with Brady Singer (3-8, 5.03 ERA) schedule to face Phillies All-Star Jesus Luzardo (7-4, 3.75 ERA).
The Reds have four games remaining on the homestand, and have an entire series against the Chicago Cubs, another NL wild card frontrunner, coming to Great American Ball Park for three games July 10-12).
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Reds beat Phillies as Sal Stewart makes history with homers
Reporting by Pat Brennan, Cincinnati Enquirer / Cincinnati Enquirer
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By Pat Brennan, Cincinnati Enquirer | USA TODAY Network
