SAN DIEGO -- Pete Crow-Armstrong made a point on Tuesday night to praise manager Craig Counsell and the Cubs’ staff for keeping the center fielder in the lineup every day and maintaining a belief that he would pull out of his early season offensive lull.
“To repay them, I’d like to turn it around here shortly,” Crow-Armstrong said.
In a 5-4 victory over the Padres on Wednesday afternoon, Crow-Armstrong offered his thanks with a two-run homer off righty Matt Waldron. It marked the second straight day with a blast for Crow-Armstrong, who had gone 77 plate appearances between deep flies when he delivered a game-changing, three-run shot in Tuesday’s win.
With the victory in the finale, the Cubs head into their Thursday off-day with a 3-3 showing on the road against the Dodgers and Padres -- a solid performance against two of the National League’s top teams.
“He impacts the game no matter what,” Cubs starter Jameson Taillon said of Crow-Armstrong. “Even if the bat’s not there, he’s making a difference running the bases or playing defense, with the energy he brings. But yeah, when the bat’s going, it’s a game-changer.
“He can change the game with one swing. He can electrify an offense, give us a bunch of momentum.”
Baseball can be funny sometimes, because Crow-Armstrong had a moment of frustration boiling over prior to Tuesday’s game.
He decided to go through batting practice on the field and turned in a tough round, including fouling pitches into the top of the cage. Crow-Armstrong stopped by a group of fans before retreating to the clubhouse, signing autographs and taking photos. On his way down the steps, he fired a batting glove in the direction of a trash can and let out a yell from inside the tunnel.
Crow-Armstrong was able to smirk a little at his outburst one day later, following two important home runs when things counted.
“It was nice that I got my emotions out in that way before the game,” he said, “and kind of bring the focus back to what really matters and what really actually is important in my day. … I’m actually, weirdly enough, glad I got that out.”
The hope now is that Crow-Armstrong might be starting to simmer in the batter’s box.
Including Tuesday’s performance, the Cubs center fielder is hitting .288/.383/.481 in his last 15 games after turning in a .203/.239/.266 slash line in his first 16 games this year. It is a similar sequence to a year ago. Crow-Armstrong had a .521 OPS in his first 17 games last year before catching fire and posting a 1.130 OPS in his next 30 games.
“There’s never a good time where you want to be like, ‘All right, I’m starting to get hot,’” Crow-Armstrong said. “It’s continuing to have good conversations, it’s continuing to kind of know what I want to do before I get in the box. And then it just becomes about being an athlete and continuing to understand how people are going to try to get me to swing.”
Crow-Armstrong’s homer in the fourth inning provided a 3-0 lead for Taillon, who was perfect through the first 14 batters before giving up three runs via a pair of homers in the fifth. The big righty calmed things from there and gave the Cubs seven innings, allowing a window for the offense to push forward.
Matt Shaw launched a homer in the eighth, but Crow-Armstrong played a key role in an earlier moment, too.
Facing Adrian Morejon with runners on second and third in the sixth, Crow-Armstrong got his bat on a 1-2 fastball (98.3 mph, per Statcast) and pulled it on the ground to Padres first baseman Ty France. Michael Conforto was running on contact from third, and was deemed safe on a headfirst slide at the plate, as catcher Luis Campusano attempted to apply the tag.
“That was huge,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I just love the aggressiveness and I love seeing Old Man ‘Forto getting down like that.”
And Counsell loved seeing Crow-Armstrong’s role in making that happen.
“I probably like the Morejon at-bat better [than the homer],” Counsell said. “That’s probably illegal to say. But, he put a ball in play when we needed to get a ball in play and it got us a run, and in a really tough matchup.”
Maybe these are all signs that Crow-Armstrong is hitting one of his hot streaks.
“He works his tail off every day,” Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman said. “You've just got to keep going in this game and you've got to just keep battling every single day until you get it rolling.”