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<\/p>\nST LOUIS \u2014 Pete Crow-Armstrong disagreed that his recent struggles have only been a week long. The MVP candidate has felt he\u2019s not performing at his best for a little while now.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing glaring,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said when asked if he\u2019s identified anything off with his swing or approach. \u201cOn the inside, I think it\u2019s been harder for a little longer than just a week. But that\u2019s also because of my standards and expectations. I\u2019m not chasing all that much. It\u2019s just results-based. It\u2019s a result-oriented game, obviously.\u201d<\/p>\n
The numbers don\u2019t support Crow-Armstrong\u2019s harsh self-criticism. From the All-Star break through the end of July, a span of 46 plate appearances, Crow-Armstrong had a 188 wRC+ with nine doubles and two home runs. July was actually his best month at a 170 wRC+. So Crow-Armstrong is just being hard on himself. His struggles started in August, and we\u2019re just a little over a week into the month. He has just three hits, just one for extra bases, and no walks in these nine games.<\/p>\n
Conventional wisdom would suggest Crow-Armstrong is chasing. It\u2019s what he does. He\u2019s a swinger and can look bad on pitches out of the zone, but also crushes them. However, that has just not been the case.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The chart above shows that as Crow-Armstrong\u2019s chase has gone down recently \u2014 to his best rate of the season, in fact \u2014 his overall production has tumbled as well. It sounds a little basic, but it appears Crow-Armstrong is just missing his pitch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s kind of what he\u2019s going through right now,\u201d hitting coach Dustin Kelly said. \u201cThere\u2019s not a ton of stuff with the swing that\u2019s different; the tempo looks really good. Sometimes you go through spells where you just don\u2019t get it on the barrel like you want to and it ends up on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
PCA’s wOBA on pitches in “heart” of zone<\/p>\n
wOBA<\/p>\n
Mar\/April<\/p>\n
.375<\/p>\n
May<\/p>\n
.549<\/p>\n
June<\/p>\n
.288<\/p>\n
July<\/p>\n
.540<\/p>\n
August<\/p>\n
.078<\/p>\n
The above shows Crow-Armstrong\u2019s wOBA by month against pitches that Statcast defines as the \u201cheart\u201d of the zone. The league average for wOBA is .314 this season (it\u2019s usually close to the league average for OBP, which is .316 this season). Crow-Armstrong had a below-average month on those pitches in June, and through nine games in August has been abysmal.<\/p>\n
A perfect example of this was in the first inning of Sunday\u2019s loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. With two men on, Crow-Armstrong worked a 3-0 count. He then saw a 92.6 mph heater down the heart of the zone. Crow-Armstrong had a green light, took a rip and softly grounded out to first base.<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing is really wrong,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said. \u201cI just suck at hitting baseballs sometimes right now. That\u2019s OK. It doesn\u2019t feel OK when I\u2019m on the field and want to help my team win. You\u2019d like to be the kick-starter or game-changer.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crow-Armstrong\u2019s hard contact had been trending up, but that\u2019s started to dip of late as well. Meanwhile, his groundball rate has trended up. His hottest stretches are when he\u2019s pulling the ball hard and in the air. That can\u2019t be forced, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe stretch that he was on was almost unconscious at times,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cThe way he hits the ball so hard and he\u2019s in the air so much, good results happen when you do that. Even when you\u2019re off the barrel. He\u2019s been on the ground a little bit more recently. Still hitting the ball hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crow-Armstrong has been putting in the work. He\u2019s trying to make sure his swing is right and that he doesn\u2019t overthink his bad days. The opposition is also doing work. Despite July being the month with the fewest games, it was the month with his most plate appearances against lefties. So far this month, pitchers are really upping their offspeed usage against Crow-Armstrong. Kelly pointed out that in general, pitchers are attacking him slightly differently, especially early in counts.<\/p>\n
\u201cEarly on, people were still trying to get him to chase below the zone and they\u2019d miss up,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cNow they\u2019re trying to miss away and then come in late and try to elevate. They\u2019re moving around the zone a little bit more and not just trying to get him to chase.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crow-Armstrong has to adjust. He can\u2019t let a bad week turn into a bad month. He\u2019s incredibly hard on himself and sets a standard where he doesn\u2019t even feel like what he\u2019s done so far this season is good enough. Whether he can meet the future expectations he\u2019s set for himself with these incredible results is the question he must answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a lot that we\u2019ve looked at swing-wise,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said. \u201cWe\u2019ve gotten back to really good positions. I think it\u2019s just one of those situations where one barrel, one blooper \u2014 if I get that one knock, then I get that knock. If not, then I just gotta go out and play center field.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Photo: Patrick McDermott \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST LOUIS \u2014 Pete Crow-Armstrong disagreed that his recent struggles have only been a week long. The MVP…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[479,363,99],"class_list":["post-77713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}