MIAMI – Pete Crow-Armstrong has learned that one of the best ways to hit a home run is to decide before he even steps into the batter’s box that he’s going to hit one.
“The thought is always just be ready to hit every pitch,” Crow-Armstrong said after the Cubs’ 10-3 loss to the Marlins on Sunday at loanDepot park.
That mindset has helped produce one of the most remarkable power seasons in Cubs history.
On Sunday, Crow-Armstrong became the 10th Cubs player to reach 40 homers in a season -- and the first left-handed batter to get there since Hall of Famer Billy Williams hit 42 in 1970. He is also the first Cub with a 40-plus home run season since Derrek Lee in 2005, who hit 46 that season and was celebrating his birthday Sunday.
“It’s a big round number and it’s a symbolic number,” manager Craig Counsell said. “Forty home runs – it's a hard number to get to and not many guys ever get to it in their career, so it was cool to see, and [the] season's not over. He's got more to add to the number.”
With the Cubs trailing 3-2 in the top of the fifth inning, the center fielder jumped on the first pitch he saw from Marlins starter Tyler Phillips — an 84.7 mph sweeper that caught the middle of the zone. Crow-Armstrong sent it a Statcast-projected 403 feet to right field with an exit velocity of 111.2 mph.
He watched the ball travel toward the right-field pole before jogging around the bases once he confirmed it had cleared the wall in fair territory. As he left the batter’s box, he held up four fingers toward his teammates in the visiting dugout.
“It’s nice to share it with my teammates,” Crow-Armstrong said. “It’s been a really easy offense to hit in and produce in, so I think it’s nice sharing it with them.”
It is also the second-most home runs in a season at age 24 or younger in Cubs history, behind Ernie Banks in 1955 with 44.
“I know how old I am. I know how many years I've been up here, and I also know that there will be another one that does it younger than me,” Crow-Armstrong said.
Crow-Armstrong has also put himself in position to join an even more exclusive group.
With 33 steals on his ledger, the NL MVP frontrunner also has a shot at recording just the seventh 40-40 season in MLB history. He is already the first player since one of his childhood favorites, Ronald Acuña Jr., to hit at least 40 home runs and steal at least 30 bases in a season at age 24 or younger. Acuña accomplished the feat in 2019, joining Alex Rodriguez and José Canseco.
The power Crow-Armstrong is showing now is the result of a swing he has spent years learning to harness.
“He's hitting a lot of home runs at a young age,” Counsell said pregame. “Power is more [of] a learned trait than we give it credit for. Getting the ball in the air to the pull side is more of a learned part of hitting and an experienced part of hitting.
“Credit to Pete, number one, with his talent, and I think the coaches have done a wonderful job crafting that.”
Crow-Armstrong’s most significant development has come in the Majors, but he first began to surprise himself with his power numbers in the Minor Leagues. The foundation for his current approach was laid toward the end of the 2023 season with Triple-A Iowa.
“Just learning how to pull the baseball efficiently, and that's what's paid the most dividends,” Crow-Armstrong said. “Not feeling like I need to have power at all fields like an Acuña or a James Wood or Shohei [Ohtani] or whoever. We've decided that my swing is built to pull the baseball, and that is absolutely something I got better at and further learned how to do up here for sure.”
The results have been significant.
The 2025 All-Star is slashing .280/.374/.572 with a .946 OPS. He also leads the league in Fielding Run Value with +26 and Outs Above Average with 24, while also leading the Cubs in RBIs (96), runs (106) and hits (155), in addition to home runs, OPS and batting average.
His 40 home runs trail only Kyle Schwarber’s 42 for the Major League lead. Schwarber had been the closest Cubs player to the mark before Crow-Armstrong this season, hitting 38 homers in 2019.
And again for Crow-Armstrong, it all comes down to intent.
“I don't really think that I've ever gotten anything out of a swing that lacked conviction or a real intent to do damage,” Crow-Armstrong said. “That's something that I would group into how you show up every day and the days that are tough, like today when you're down seven runs and you’ve got to go up for your fourth at-bat.
“I think that's where you remember that the most. Every swing you take is yours, so … own it.”