CHICAGO -- About three hours before he was scheduled to take the mound in his first big-league start of the year, Cincinnati Reds right-hander Chase Petty walked down the 49 steps from the visitors clubhouse, took a left before walking the length of the batting cage, a right toward the dugout and then up another set of steps to the dugout at Wrigley Field. Petty, 23, was going to make his third career big-league start for a team that needed everything he could give them to stop a three-game losing streak, and he was doing it in a place he'd always dreamed of playing.
Petty took another two steps up the railing toward the field that has hosted major-league games since 1914, but even though he had carte blanche to walk the immaculate grass, he stopped halfway up the steps and just looked out at the scene. Petty took in the manual scoreboard and the ivy-covered brick wall that he'd seen so many times on TV but never in person.
It was a small moment, but an important one. He wanted to see it empty, before 32,997 people came through the gates to watch him fail. To step foot on this field was a goal, a dream, but not the goal, not the dream.
"I just wanted to take it in but not take it in too much to where I'm psyching myself out," Petty said after the Reds' 5-4 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Monday. "Last night I was talking to my wife and my brother, and the 10-year-old me dreamed about this, so I'm just trying to appreciate that and make that kid happy."
Petty accomplished that, even if he wasn't able to record his first major-league victory. He pitched 5 2/3 innings, allowed three runs on four hits and two walks and a strikeout.
When Reds manager Terry Francona came to the mound to get him after 75 pitches and a runner on base with two outs in the sixth, Petty had helped the team make up for its week of short starts, bridging the gap to the bullpen with the Reds and Cubs tied at 3.
"I thought he was terrific. In the grand scheme of things, it was really good," Francona said. "For us trying to win tonight, you can't walk the two leadoff hitters (the fourth inning), and then he fell behind (Seiya) Suzuki and threw him a fastball up and he climbed all over it."
All three of Petty's runs came on Suzuki's fourth-inning home run. Petty had given up some hard-hit balls and a pair of hits heading into the fourth inning but didn't walk anyone until he issued a leadoff walk to Alex Bregman to start the fourth and followed with a walk to Ian Happ, bringing up Suzuki. The Reds' 3-0 lead evaporated after he missed outside the zone with his first pitch to Suzuki and then tried to get ahead with a fastball that Suzuki crushed 455 feet to tie the score at three.
Petty was a first-round pick of the Minnesota Twins out of a New Jersey high school in 2021 and was traded the next spring to the Reds in exchange for starter Sonny Gray.
Petty made his big-league debut in April 2025 and gave up nine runs in 2 1/3 innings against the St. Louis Cardinals. He gave up four runs in three innings in his second big-league start and made just one more relief appearance with the Reds. Petty was 6-13 with a 6.39 ERA in 26 starts at Triple A, a disappointing outcome after entering the season as a top 100 prospect in the game according to Baseball America.
Entering this spring, Francona told him that 2025 wouldn't define his career. It was a message that was already on his mind and on his glove. Petty's red Emery glove has a quote from one of his favorite anime shows, "Naruto: Shippuden." The passage spanning the bottom two fingers of his glove reads: "Those who do not understand true pain can never understand true peace." The webbing of his glove has the Japanese kanji for "pain." He has a similar black glove that has the same quotation but has the character for "peace" on the webbing.
"It's just something that hits close to home," Petty said. "I think the whole point of life is finding peace, and at the end of the day, I get to play a game for a living. I'm always going to be at peace with that."
He was at peace with his walks and the pitch he threw to Suzuki that led to the pain of the Reds' first walk-off loss of the season, but he said he'll take that pain from those mistakes to his next bullpen and into his next big-league start, whenever that might be. With lefty Nick Lodolo slated to return to action Friday, Petty's next start will likely be back at Triple A.
Monday's start, though, gave both sides of the coin, pain and peace.
"I think that using last year as a stepping stone, I don't let the past or the future represent who I am; it's just memories and imagination," Petty said. "I'm just trying to live in the present and be where my feet are."
Monday, they were at Wrigley Field, one of the game's most hallowed cathedrals. Friday, they could be in Louisville, Ky. Regardless of where his feet are, his charge is the same.
"He more than looked the part," said Reds closer Emilio Pagán, who gave up a home run to Cubs pinch hitter Michael Conforto in the ninth for the loss. "He should feel good about himself moving forward that he knows he can execute and be successful at this level."