CHICAGO – Pete Crow-Armstrong backpedaled a few steps, tracking the flight of the ball and sensing the gravity of the moment. The front of the center fielder’s uniform was covered in dirt, which is usually a good sign for the Cubs. As the final out landed in his glove Thursday night, the young sensation pumped his arms and immediately turned around to face the Wrigley Field bleachers and ignite the celebration.
“Go Cubs Go,” a victory song that has endured for generations, started playing on the ballpark sound system at 7:08 p.m. Fans pulled out their phones to take a selfie in the aisles or record the screaming crowd of 40,895. After a resounding 3-1 victory over the San Diego Padres that ended this National League Wild Card Series, the press box high atop the Friendly Confines began shaking.
The catch came with no degree of difficulty, especially for a defender with Crow-Armstrong’s blazing speed and natural instincts. Throughout this tense best-of-three matchup, Gold Glove defenders such as Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner made difficult plays look routine, and turned potential game-changing hits into spectacular defensive highlights.
But the idea that Crow-Armstrong would directly acknowledge the fans before running into his teammates’ arms was revealing.
“I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t thinking about being able to turn around and say something to those people out there,” Crow-Armstrong said inside the clubhouse, now completely drenched from all the spraying of cheap beer and sparkling wine. “We owe everything to those people coming out and showing up every day. They’re just as much a part of this as these people in this clubhouse. I’m definitely somebody that feeds off of my bleacher creatures.”
When Craig Counsell took over as Chicago’s manager after the 2023 season, he looked beyond Crow-Armstrong’s poor showing as a September call-up that year. Crow-Armstrong would grow to implicitly trust Counsell, who stressed the concept of being able to move on from each pitch and stay focused enough to make the next play.
In the postseason, that mindset is paramount.
After an MVP-caliber first half this year, Crow-Armstrong fell into a deep hitting slump, returning to the place where his offensive contributions would have to be considered a bonus.
An elimination game found Crow-Armstrong in the second inning, with the bases loaded and his Beastie Boys walk-up music (“Sabotage”) blaring throughout the ballpark. He swung at the second pitch he saw, a Yu Darvish fastball over the middle of the plate, and hit a line drive into center field for an RBI single.
The Padres looked rattled. Scoring first allowed the Cubs to drain some of the nervous energy from Wrigley Field, line up their pitching and force San Diego to go to its tired bullpen in the second inning. Crow-Armstrong’s clutch hit scored Kyle Tucker, who started the rally with a leadoff single that pressured Darvish.
Tucker had missed the celebration in Pittsburgh when the Cubs clinched their playoff spot in the middle of September. Frustrated by the lack of progress with his strained left calf, he elected to travel home to Florida to consult with a physical therapy group he had worked with previously. He may not be 100 percent yet, but he’s back hitting line drives and looking like he could be a force in October.
That was the whole idea when the Cubs paid a huge price to acquire Tucker, a soon-to-be free agent, in a blockbuster trade with the Houston Astros last offseason. He has now competed in the postseason in each of the last seven years. The music was so loud in the clubhouse — and he speaks in such an understated manner — that it was hard to hear the voice of the 6-foot-4 All-Star.
“When you come together in spring training as a group, this is where you want to be,” Tucker said. “We have such a great group of guys here. Everyone’s just trying to support each other and get to the next stage.”
That level of support consistently lifted Crow-Armstrong, who among club personnel is referred to as “Pete,” not “PCA.” A showman on the field, he earned respect behind the scenes through his quiet work in the batting cage, and early practice sessions in an empty Wrigley Field. He understands what it looks like when he’s slamming helmets after a frustrating at-bat.
“I don’t handle my failure very well,” Crow-Armstrong said. “That’s going to be a really good part of my growth as a baseball player and as a major-leaguer. But anything like that goes away — any frustration — when you get to share it with these people. There have just been so many times this year when I’ve been brought back down to earth, by coaches, by teammates. The people I got in here, they’re super special.
“But, yeah, baseball’s hard. I showed you all that. We’ve all shown you that. That’s no secret. These are the moments we work for, but we also work to continue playing through this postseason.”
The Milwaukee Brewers are up next in a best-of-five series that should be great theater. Counsell, the ex-Brewers manager who grew up in Milwaukee, will get booed loudly at American Family Field. All the Cubs fans who make those road games feel like Wrigleyville North will like their chances if something clicks for Crow-Armstrong and Tucker.
In case Cubs fans had forgotten how this works, Counsell gave a reminder.
“This was just three games,” Counsell said. “We got to win 13 to get through it. We’ve won two, so we got to get 11 more to win. And when you lose one of ‘em, it feels like the world’s going to end. That’s just the nature of this. You have to know that and ride with it, but it’s just so much fun. To be able to experience it here, it was a magical night.”
(Photo: AP / Erin Hooley)