MILWAUKEE -- The Brewers have seen Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong more than most teams over the past few years and have a strong track record so far for minimizing his impact in the batter’s box.
“We’re lucky,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said.
In the Cubs’ 4-3 loss to the Brewers on Monday afternoon, Crow-Armstrong notched two hits, including his 41st homer of the year, stole two bases and scored two runs in the opener of a three-game set at American Family Field. A late comeback by Milwaukee cancelled out his contributions and dropped Chicago eight games back of first in the National League Central.
“Pete had another nice day,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “Obviously he’s just playing at a super high level. But, [it was] not enough.”
With the loss, the Cubs dropped to 4-7 on the year against the Brewers, giving the season series to Milwaukee. Chicago also slipped a half-game behind the Phillies for NL’s top Wild Card seed.
“I haven’t even really looked at the standings, to be completely honest with you,” Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman said. “We’ve got to win the next game and take that mentality from here on out through the end.”
Here are three takeaways from Monday’s loss:
1. PCA’s 40-40 pursuit
After Crow-Armstrong launched his 40th home run of the season on Sunday in Miami, it would be perfectly understandable if the center fielder wanted to make a closing push to reach 40 stolen bases on the season, too.
“He’s a human, yeah,” Counsell said. “So I think it’s normal.”
In Monday’s series opener in Milwaukee, Crow-Armstrong collected two more steals, running his total to 35 thefts on the season. He was hit by a pitch in the fifth inning and promptly swiped second base against Brewers lefty Robert Gasser. Then in the seventh, Crow-Armstrong singled to center off lefty Aaron Ashby and, again, stole second.
Crow-Armstrong is not only vying to become the first player in Cubs history to achieve a 40-40 campaign. Should the center fielder hit both benchmarks, he would become the seventh player in American League/National League history to have at least 40 homers and 40 steals in a single season.
Crow-Armstrong has joined Juan Soto, Shohei Ohtani, Ronald Acuña Jr. (twice), Alfonso Soriano, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds (twice) and José Canseco as the only players to compile at least 40 homers and 35 steals in one year.
In the ninth inning, Crow-Armstrong hit a no-doubt homer to right off Brewers closer Trevor Megill to cut Chicago’s deficit to one run. The blast came on a 99.6 mph fastball from Megill, who had not allowed a home run through 55 appearances this season.
Entering the game, the Brewers had limited Crow-Armstrong -- currently the front-runner for the NL MVP Award -- to a .108 (4-for-37) showing in 10 games this season.
“This guy has raked everybody this year,” Murphy said. “He's the best offensive player in the game this year, no question about it. Throw in his defense and his baserunning -- I mean, we play them a lot, more than other teams -- but I don't know of a better player. It feels like he's played good against us.”
2. Boyd’s quality start
For a moment, it appeared as though a solo home run from Pedro Ramírez in the fifth and Bregman’s go-ahead single in the seventh was going to be just enough to back a strong effort from Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd.
Boyd got through the first seven innings with few hiccups, facing the minimum in five frames in that stretch. The Brewers put two runners aboard in the first and Boyd escaped unscathed. The veteran lefty limited Milwaukee to an RBI single when another threat arose in the fifth.
“Matthew was great,” Counsell said. “Clearly for seven innings, he was awesome.”
Overall, Boyd leaned heavily on his changeup -- using it 37% of the time, compared to 26% on the season overall -- to rack up seven strikeouts against two walks with three runs allowed in his 100-pitch effort. For the fourth time in his 19 outings this year, Boyd gave the North Siders at least seven innings of work.
3. The call to the ‘pen
Counsell handed the ball to Boyd for the top of the eighth inning and the lefty issued a leadoff walk to Garrett Mitchell and then gave up a double to Joey Ortiz. At that juncture, the manager turned things over to a Cubs bullpen that has been trying to get back on track as a unit.
“The mission was, ‘Get two hitters out,’ or, ‘You’ve got two hitters for the eighth,’” Counsell said. “Unfortunately, both those guys got on and then they created a good inning.”
Jackson Chourio put the finishing touch on Boyd’s pitching line with a two-run single into right field off reliever Ryan Zeferjahn, putting the Cubs in a 3-2 hole. Later in the frame, righty Jacob Webb allowed a sacrifice fly to Christian Yelich with the bases loaded to give the Brewers an important insurance run.
“[We’ve] still got two real important games after this,” Boyd said of the season series with the Brewers. “But yeah, it’s tight baseball and that’s for good reason. That’s what you want. That’s what you want this time of year. That’s what you want as a ballplayer.”