Cubs walk off Reds — of course — for third straight night and 14th straight win at home

The can’t-lose Cubs needed 10 innings to beat the Reds 7-6 on a wild, weird, not entirely wonderful Wednesday at Wrigley Field.

The day began on a sour note, with the completely unexpected news of yet another injury to a key pitcher, this time starter Matthew Boyd.

It ended with yet another walk-off win — the Cubs’ third in as many days — after a couldn’t-script-it ninth inning that sent the game into extras and fans who haven’t left the ballpark with frowns on their mugs in nearly a month into delirium.

It also ended with a winning pitcher, Trent Thornton — sorry, who? — absolutely no one could have seen coming. Good to meet you, Thorn-o, and we’ll get back to you in a bit.

The Cubs’ 25-12 record is their second-best through 37 games in over a century.

They’ve won eight consecutive games overall and now have a hard-to-believe 14-game winning streak at Wrigley, their longest since 2008. If they complete a four-game sweep of the Reds on Thursday, they’ll have their longest home streak in 91 years.

Their 17-5 start at Wrigley is their best after 22 games since 1985, and their 18-3 all-out tear over the last three-plus weeks makes them — in case it weren’t obvious — the hottest team in baseball.

What else? The Cubs’ six walk-off wins through 37 games is a 30-year franchise first, they have back-to-back-to-back walk-off wins for the first time since 2009 and, according to historian Ed Hartig, their three straight walk-offs against the Reds represent the first time they’ve visited such cruelty on the same team since 1943.

And do they ever have the Reds (20-17) — a first-place team just last week, but now five games back with six losses in a row — bloodied and on the ropes.

With closer Daniel Palencia unavailable after pitching Tuesday, manager Craig Counsell sent Corbin Martin to the mound for the ninth with a 4-2 lead. But Spencer Steer led off with a homer, Will Benson and Tyler Stephenson followed with base hits and Counsell called for lefty Hoby Milner.

Milner misplayed a bunt to load the bases, gave up the tying run on a JJ Bleday single and then watched in horror as two runners scored on a long sacrifice fly that sent right fielder Seiya Suzuki crashing into the wall and falling on the warning track.

Down 6-4 in the ninth against Graham Ashcroft, Carson Kelly and Pete Crow-Armstrong had back-to-back opposite-field hits on 3-2 counts — Armstrong’s clearing the wall in left to tie it.

Thornton — who was called up from Triple-A Iowa earlier in the day to take Boyd’s spot on the roster — inherited two runners in the 10th and got three massive outs in his first appearance as a Cub.

“Nails,” Armstrong said. “For Thornton to come in only being here for 12 hours is sick.”

The Cubs won it with two outs in the 10th on Michael Busch’s bases-loaded walk off Brock Burke. Fittingly, it was the second consecutive night with a walk-off at-bat for Busch.

“You feel like you’ve seen a lot of baseball games in your life and then you see stuff you just don’t expect to see,” Counsell said. “That’s why we love it, right?”

Not around to celebrate was Boyd, who has a “meniscus issue” in his left knee, as Counsell put it, and likely will need surgery.

As Counsell described it, the 35-year-old lefty got hurt in one of the more innocent, extremely unlucky ways imaginable: as he was “going down to the ground and getting back up” while playing with his kids Wednesday morning at home. An All-Star last season and the Cubs’ Game 1 starter in the wild-card series against the Padres, Boyd is bound for a lengthy stay on the injured list that could be a matter of months.

The Cubs have sent a cavalcade of pitchers to the injured list since the start of spring training. The loss of Boyd is a considerable blow to a team that already has pushed back the timeline of starter Justin Steele, who last pitched in April 2025 and might not again until the second half of this season, and likely won’t have starter Cade Horton back from Tommy John surgery until midway through next season at best.

NOTE: A day after being carted off the field, Reds closer Emilio Pagan went on the injured list with a Grade 2 left hamstring strain that’s expected to shelve him for four to eight weeks.