By John Fay
Enquirer staff writer

PHOTO GALLERY

Photos of Thursday's game

CHICAGO - It was a bad day for the Reds, a good day for the Chicago Cubs and a great day for anyone who has the Cubs in a 13-run pool.

The Cubs beat up on the Reds 13-2 before 40,010 fans at Wrigley Field to complete a two-game sweep.

Cory Lidle, the Reds starter, took the brunt of the beating. He went 4 1/3 innings, allowing eight runs on 10 hits.

"I felt good," Lidle said. "I just didn't get any results at all."

Cubs starter Greg Maddux went all the way, limiting the Reds to four hits for the 298th victory of his career.

It was vintage Maddux. He needed only 92 pitches to finish off the Reds. He struck out six and walked none. The Reds did not leave a runner on base all day and did not have an at-bat with a runner in scoring position.

Backup catcher Javier Valentin scored both of the Reds' runs. He homered in his first two at-bats for the first two-homer game of his career.

The game was over in two hours, 15 minutes.

"Cory wasn't sharp," Reds manager Dave Miley said. "Maddux was. I don't know how many groundball outs we had, but . . ."

It was 13.

The Cubs had no problem getting the ball in the air. On a day when the wind was blowing in at Wrigley, the Cubs hit four balls hard enough to cut through the wind for home runs.

The Cubs, in fact, went for a home run cycle. They hit a solo shot, a two-runner, a three-runner and a grand slam.

The grand slam came in the sixth inning off reliever Ryan Wagner. At that point, the Cubs had extended their lead to 12-2.

With Maddux on the mound for the Cubs, it might as well have been 18-2.

Lidle, who fell to 6-8 and had his ERA rise to 5.18, worked a 1-2-3 first.

But the first pitch of the Cubs' second inning was a bit up. Moises Alou hit it out to left field for his 24th home run of the year.

Valentin tied it in the third by leading off with a shot that hit the foul pole in right field.

But then Alou gave the Cubs the lead for good in their half of the third, taking Lidle out to left again, this time with a man on.

"He didn't locate it where he needed it," Valentin said. "You can't do that with Alou. That's why he's got 24 home runs."

Still, it was just a 3-1 game.

It got away from Lidle in the fourth. Alex Gonzalez and Paul Bako started the inning with back-to-back singles. When Maddux lined to third baseman Tim Hummel while trying to bunt the runners over, it looked like Lidle had a decent chance of escaping.

But the next batter, Mark Grudzielanek, hit out the first pitch he saw to make it a 6-1 game. It was Grudzielanek's second home run of the year.

Lidle gave up two more runs in the fifth before Miley pulled him. It was Lidle's worst outing since he gave up nine runs in 3 2/3 against Oakland June 7. That ended up a 13-2 loss, too.

"I don't know (how to explain it)," Lidle said. "We don't travel with a video, so I haven't seen the pitches. I don't know whether they were bad pitches or they just hit good pitches."

The Cubs turned the game into a rout in the sixth inning when Aramis Ramirez hit the grand slam .

The sweep here, following the Reds' sweep of Milwaukee in two games in Cincinnati, is disheartening.

With the trade deadline looming July 31, the Reds need to keep winning to make a case for management to make helpful moves.

"It's a tough day," Valentin said, "especially against (the Cubs). We can play better. We got to go to Pittsburgh and try to take two of three. We want to stay in the wild-card (race). We got a chance.

"We got to win some games."

E-mail jfay@enquirer.com

Cincinnati	AB	R	H	BI	BB	SO	Avg.
Freel cf-3b	4	0	0	0	0	1	.273
JCastro ss	4	0	0	0	0	0	.269
Casey 1b	3	0	1	0	0	0	.341
PNorton p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
GWhite p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
Dunn lf	3	0	0	0	0	0	.263
DJimenez 2b	3	0	0	0	0	2	.271
WPena rf-cf	3	0	1	0	0	0	.296
Valentin c	3	2	2	2	0	0	.194
Hummel 3b	2	0	0	0	0	1	.234
RWagner p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
Vander Wal 1b	1	0	0	0	0	1	.222
Lidle p	1	0	0	0	0	1	.143
JaCruz rf	2	0	0	0	0	0	.240
Totals	29	2	4	2	0	6

Chicago	AB	R	H	BI	BB	SO	Avg.
Grudzielanek 2b	5	1	2	3	0	0	.261
CPatterson cf	3	2	0	0	1	0	.278
Macias cf	1	1	1	0	0	0	.291
SSosa rf	5	0	1	1	0	1	.267
Alou lf	3	4	3	3	1	0	.286
Goodwin lf	1	0	0	0	0	1	.190
DeLee 1b	3	2	2	1	1	0	.303
ARamirez 3b	4	1	2	4	0	0	.322
REMartinez 3b	1	0	0	0	0	0	.250
ASGonzalez ss	4	1	2	1	0	1	.238
Bako c	4	1	1	0	0	2	.195
Maddux p	4	0	0	0	0	1	.128
Totals	38	13	14	13	3	6

Cincinnati	001	010	000	-2	4	0
Chicago	012	324	01x	-13	14	1

E-ARamirez (8). LOB-Chicago 5. 2B-Alou (18), DeLee (31), ASGonzalez (8). HR-ARamirez (17), off RWagner; Grudzielanek (2), off Lidle; Valentin 2 (5), off Maddux 2; Alou 2 (24), off Lidle 2. RBIs-Valentin 2 (13), Grudzielanek 3 (9), SSosa (42), Alou 3 (60), DeLee (57), ARamirez 4 (61), ASGonzalez (8). CS-Freel (6), WPena (1). GIDP-DJimenez.

DP-Chicago 1 (Grudzielanek, ASGonzalez and DeLee).

Cincinnati	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	NP	ERA
Lidle L, 6-8	4 1/3	10	8	8	2	3	73	5.18
RWagner	1 2/3	2	4	4	1	1	27	7.48
PNorton	1	0	0	0	0	1	8	5.17
GWhite	1	2	1	1	0	1	27	4.80

Chicago	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	NP	ERA
Maddux W, 9-7	9	4	2	2	0	6	92	4.03

Inherited runners-scored-RWagner 1-0.

HBP-by RWagner (DeLee). WP-GWhite.

T-2:15. A-40,010 (39,345).