Milwaukee earned its tie by refusing to let the inning end
The game's hinge was not simply that Milwaukee scored three times in the fifth. It was how the inning stayed alive. Brady Singer got to two outs and still could not close it. Jackson Chourio walked. Jake Bauers walked. Garrett Mitchell singled to center to score Chourio. Brice Turang followed with a double to right that scored Mitchell and Bauers. A 6-3 Cincinnati lead was gone, and the whole thing was back to 6-6 before the bottom half even started.
I am not going to invent a secret reason for that sequence, because the record does not give you one. It does give you the oldest problem in the sport: two outs, then traffic, then damage. Two straight two-out walks are how an inning starts needing lawyers. Milwaukee earned its tie by refusing to make the pitcher finish cleanly, and Cincinnati suddenly had to solve a fresh game instead of protecting an early cushion.
The answer started before De La Cruz swung
Cincinnati's best work came immediately after the tie, and it started before Elly De La Cruz swung. Antonio Senzatela opened the bottom of the fifth by walking Juan Brito, allowing Hector Rodriguez's single, and walking Dane Myers. Bases loaded, no outs. That is not a complicated board. That is an inning you have handed over.
De La Cruz did the expensive part. On a 2-0 sinker from Senzatela, he doubled to center, scoring Brito and Rodriguez and sending Myers to third. The ball left at 116.6 mph, which is one tidy way to keep a tie from lingering. Tyler Stephenson later added an infield single that scored Myers, and 6-6 had become 9-6. Milwaukee had done the hard work to get even, then gave Cincinnati an immediate runway to take the game right back.
The last four innings were a relay, not a flourish
Once Singer was done after five innings, Cincinnati did not ask one reliever to wear the whole mess. It used five relievers to cover the last four innings. Luis Mey handled the sixth and Brock Burke the seventh; both were scoreless and both got holds. Graham Ashcraft took the eighth, allowed a run, and still came away with a hold. That is not elegance. That is a bullpen card being torn into smaller jobs, which is often the sensible way to survive a noisy game.
The ninth was a reminder that no part of this night was getting wrapped neatly. Pierce Johnson recorded two outs while allowing Turang's RBI single and two walks. Emilio Pagan was needed for the last out and got it for a one-out save. In a 12-8 game after a starter's 97 pitches through five, the adult work was simply getting those final four innings parceled out without letting the whole thing spill.
The tie was real; Cincinnati's answer was better
Games like this tempt you into the lazy read that nothing mattered except which club happened to hit last. That was not this one. Milwaukee's two-out rally in the fifth was real pressure. Cincinnati's answer in the bottom half was cleaner, harder, and immediate, and that is where the game stopped feeling evenly shared.
After that, the Reds did not need beauty. They needed enough outs from enough arms and a loud swing in the right spot, and they got both. In dugout terms, that is the difference between a wild game you explain all the way home and a wild game you actually win.