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Pete Crow-Armstrong Of The Cubs Is Back To Playing The Game His Way

adminJune 1, 20262 Mins read2

Pete Crow-Armstrong Of The Cubs Is Back To Playing The Game His Way

About ten days ago this contributor wrote that Pete Crow-Armstrong needed a day off to take a breath, clear his head, and get back on course.

Well, Craig Counsell isn’t considered one of the best managers in baseball — one who has the richest contract amongst all managers (five years, $40 million) — for nothing. Rather than listening to the musing of an ink-stained wretch, he wrote out his lineup card the next day with PCA in the lead-off spot, and all he did was walk twice and hit a line-drive home run.

In fact, since that article published, Crow-Armstrong has been in the lineup every day, has slashed .297/.426/.541, with two home runs and seven walks. The second of those two big flies came Saturday night in St. Lous. With the rival crowd chanting “overrated” each time Crow-Armstrong stepped into the batter’s box, PCA smashed a 444-foot no-doubter into the “no tarps” section of Busch Stadium (115-mph off the bat), silencing his doubters. That was his third hit of the night, and he collected a single an inning later to complete his fourth career four-hit game.

Saturday’s performance could have been predicted. When Crow-Armstrong was in Triple-A as a highly touted prospect, veteran Wily Peralta thought he would show the kid how the game is played. The pitcher threw one pitch behind Crow-Armstrong and the another over his head. After much yelling (and a manager ejection) and warnings for both teams, Peralta fired a fastball and PCA crushed a massive home run over the right field wall, and then executed a perfect bat flip, to boot. So, with Cardinal fans harassing him, with the media coming down on him, with him dealing with his first taste of national adversity, PCA relied on his incredible talent to do the talking.

And, to add insult to Cardinals’ fans’ injury, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning of that same game, Jordan Walker hit a ball nearly 100-mph into the gap in left-center. Let’s allow the great Sarah Langs spell out what happened next:

Over the course of his four-year career, PCA has been streaky and sometimes inconsistent on offense. His defense has never been in question. So, when he made two errors in two days during his latest swoon, that is when things started to look dire. And when a player who admittedly plays with his hair on fire, curses out two different sets of fans, there was reason to wonder if the pressure was getting to be too much. But all Pete Crow-Armstrong proved over the course of the past week is that he is as professional as they come; that he doesn’t allow the outside noise affect his play on the field (inside his head is a different question); and that he has the faith and backing of the organization that staked him to a six year, $115 million contract.

PCA was in the MVP hunt early last season, and his is the tenth most popular jersey by sales according to MLB. His hiccup on the south side of Chicago notwithstanding, he stands to have another terrific season, help the Cubs get back to the playoffs, and continue to wow and annoy fans from coast to coast.

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