CHICAGO _ The sun peeked through puffy clouds as the wind blew out on a warm summer day, fighter jets buzzed a packed Wrigley Field while practicing for this weekend's Chicago Air and Water Show and Jon Lester was on the mound against the worst team in the National League Central Division.
What could possibly go wrong for the Cubs on Thursday?
Early on, pretty much everything.
Later on, pretty much nothing.
In the end, just enough to lose a heartbreaker.
In a rollicking affair that saw them rally from an early nine-run deficit to tie the score, the Cubs eventually fell to the Reds, 13-10, in front of a crowd of 38,675 left woozy by the twists and turns of the series finale.
Trailing 9-0 after a second inning that saw Lester first shelled _ with the big blow a three-run, wind-blown home run by Joey Votto _ and then accompanied off the field with a trainer due to left latissimus dorsi tightness, the Cubs stormed back to tie it courtesy of six home runs, including three in a row in an explosive fourth inning.
But in the end, the bullpen yielded four runs in the final three innings to allow the Reds to split the series 2-2 and drop the Cubs to 63-57.
Lester threw 46 pitches before signaling to the dugout that there was an issue _ other than the eight runs that already had crossed the plate. Lester, who in the end allowed nine runs (seven earned) on seven hits with a walk and no strikeouts in 12/3 innings, was to be examined later Thursday, and the results weren't expected to be revealed until Friday morning.
"Obviously something wasn't right because the cutters were like 84 or 85 (mph)," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. "When I went out to the mound, (Lester) said something about ... his lat was tight and then of course you just make the move right there."
Mike Montgomery, who likely would take Lester's spot in the rotation if the veteran left-hander is sidelined, went 41/3 innings and didn't allow a run on three hits with a walk and four strikeouts.
Meanwhile, the Cubs' bats exploded as they belted six homers in a game for the first time since Aug. 2, 2011 against the Pirates. Rookie Ian Happ led the way with two, while Kris Bryant, Alex Avila, Javier Baez and Kyle Schwarber also found the seats. In the fourth, Avila, Happ and Baez went back-to-back-to back to pull the Cubs to within 9-6, and after they plated three more in the fifth the score was tied.
The party came to a halt in the seventh, when Phillip Ervin (3 for 4, four RBIs) launched a two-run blast off Justin Grimm to give the Reds an 11-9 lead. After Happ knocked in his third run with a sacrifice fly in the bottom half, the Reds scored runs off Justin Wilson and Hector Rondon in the eighth and ninth.
Grimm, Wilson and Rondon each walked two batters, and the free passes came back to haunt them.
"You can't catch a walk, it really comes down to that," Maddon said. "It's really hard to play defense when you're walking people. We have to get better with that. If you look at the overall ranking of our bullpen ... it's still second in the National League so we've done a lot of good things. (Thursday) was just a bad day and we have to get a couple of guys straightened out."
Those walks helped spoil what had been an epic comeback, one that Maddon and Montgomery each said could be taken as a positive. Avila, who was 2 for 4 with three RBIs, wasn't having it, however.
"We lost the game," Avila said. "It would have been great if we had won the game, a game you're not supposed to win. It would have been the better story, obviously. But it's a loss."
