The Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong hits his first career hit and home run as a two-run home run off Bryan Abreu #52 of the Houston Astros (not pictured) during the sixth inning at Wrigley Field on April 25.
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Cubs rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong flexed his chest as he jogged into home plate. He let out a shout toward teammate Miguel Amaya, who was waiting on the other side, hands held above his head for a high-ten.
For his first major-league hit, Crow-Armstrong had not only launched a two-run homer into the right-field bleachers, but he gave the Cubs a sixth-inning lead in a game they’d go on to win 3-1. With the victory Thursday, they completed a three-game sweep of the Astros.
Crow-Armstrong was in the starting lineup Thursday for the first time this season, after coming into Wednesday’s game as a late-inning defensive replacement.
In his second major-league stint, Crow-Armstrong came in this week with a foundation he didn’t have when he debuted last September. He went 0-for-14 in that stretch. And while the team’s top prospect showed flashes of brilliance on defense, his inexperience showed in several facets of the game, especially on the base paths.
“I’m coming back here, and a lot feels pretty similar, considering a lot of the faces around me, but also it’s really good vibes again,” Crow-Armstrong said Wednesday after being recalled. “So I know how to play my role a little bit better now. I think I have a better understanding of how to be myself as well.”
It wasn’t as if he lost himself last time around – which was only a 13-game sample at a high-pressure time of year.
“You could say a bunch of different things, whether the situation got a little big, and maybe I shelled up compared to what I would normally feel on a baseball field, or whatever I’ve already deciphered in my brain,” he said. “I don’t think that I wasn’t myself, I just don’t think I was the best version of myself at that point last year.”
He spent most of the offseason in Arizona, working with hitting coach Dustin Kelly at the Cubs’ spring training complex.
It started with Crow-Armstrong and Kelly sending each other clips of the rookie’s past swings, picking out ones they liked best, Crow-Armstrong told the Sun-Times this spring.
They agreed on three swings from a span of a couple weeks in High-A two years ago and went about replicating the feeling ingrained in Crow-Armstrong’s muscle memory from that time.
“We started with the setup and getting him to a spot where he’s really athletic and kind of moving from ‘a base’ is what we call it,” Kelly said in spring training. “It’s not necessarily a base of what his lower half is, it’s just like, this is your starting point, and we know what every move is after that.”
That work didn’t show up in Crow-Armstrong’s early production at the plate. He was batting .203 when center fielder Cody Bellinger fractured two ribs jumping into the Wrigley Field wall, forcing the Cubs to make a roster move.
“I think it’s been really good for me, funny enough,” Crow-Armstrong said Wednesday night of the slump. “I think I can say that after two weeks of it too. But during, I felt pretty pretty all over the place, but it usually takes me a second to get my feet wet every year.”
His closeness with his Triple-A teammates, and their support as he struggled at the plate, helped him “zoom out,” and look at the broader picture.
“What was so beautiful about [manager Craig Counsell] laying stuff out for me [Wednesday] was, at every level, I’ve come to find that winning really does make everything better,” Crow-Armstrong said. “And so if you’re going out there and making that your focus, then you could be scuffling at the plate like I was – or like I will – and it’ll be okay.”
Counsell laid out Crow-Armstrong’s role, which will include some starts but also coming into games off the bench, to him in stark terms.
“He wants me and whoever else is coming up here to be ourselves, just because what we do best is going to help this team win ballgames,” Crow-Armstrong said. “And how you come to understand that is really important.”