Friday's early afternoon baseball schedule included the reigning champion Chicago Cubs hosting the Cincinnati Reds. With the Cubs already in the postseason, they continued to try to build momentum ahead of their championship defense. In their latest outing, they picked up a 5-4 win thanks to Ian Happ. Here's the latest Reds vs. Cubs recap with top players, game stats, an MLB standings update, and what's next on the schedule for these teams.

MLB game recap

The Chicago Cubs jumped ahead on the scoreboard first with two runs in the first inning. Jose Quintana hit a sacrifice fly which was a fielder's choice.

That allowed Ian Happ to score the first run, while Alex Avila made it third base. Jon Jay would hit another sac fly to center, and that scored Avila making it 2-0.

The score would remain in favor of the Cubs until the top of the fifth inning. That's when the Cincinnati Reds exploded for four runs to take a 4-2 lead. RBIs came courtesy of singles by Scott Schebler, Tucker Barnhart, Phillip Ervin, and Joey Votto through the inning.

It wasn't until the bottom of the eighth inning that Chicago received a huge hit from Ian Happ. With Tommy La Stella and Taylor Davis on base, Happ hit a home run to left center field off pitcher A Garrett. That put the Cubs ahead 5-4 which held up for the remainder of the game.

Happ finished today's game with a 2-for-4 performance with three RBIs and two runs scored. Jay was 1-for-2 with an RBI, while Quintana added the game's other RBI for the Cubs. La Stella went 2-for-4 with a run scored.

In the losing effort, Joey Votto was 2-for-4 with an RBI for the Reds. Ervin went 1-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored, while Barnhart was 1-for-3 with one RBI.

Brian Dunning recorded today's win for Chicago to move to 1-1 on the season while Jason Grimm picked up his first save of the season. Cincinnati's Michael Lorenzen took the loss to drop to 8-4 for this season.

Standings & what's next

The Cincinnati Reds are now 67-93 overall and 28-51 on the road after today's loss. They'll try to bounce back on Saturday with their next road game against the Cubs.

Jackson Stephens will get the pitching start for Cincinnati.

Today's win makes the Chicago Cubs' record 91-69 for the season with a home record of 47-32. They'll be a part of the postseason as the National League's Central division winners. Next up, is another game hosting the Reds on Saturday beginning at 4:05 p.m. Eastern Time. Jon Lester is on the mound for Chicago.
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