Pete Crow-Armstrong got off to a rough start at the plate this season after he put together a breakout campaign in 2025. Entering Saturday’s game against the Cardinals at Busch Stadium, he had a .224/.314/.362 slash line with six home runs in ’26.
But as the month of May nears an end, PCA might be heating up. The 24-year-old center fielder, who launched 31 homers and stole 35 bases and won his first career Gold Glove Award last season, had a huge night at the plate on Saturday, going 4-for-5 with a double, a homer and two RBIs in the Cubs’ 6-1 win.
That performance, in which he finished a triple shy of hitting for the cycle, upped PCA’s slash line to .237/.327/.391. The contest began in an inauspicious manner for Crow-Armstrong, who struck out swinging to open the game. But he wouldn’t make an out the rest of the night. In fact, he would scorch every ball he put in play the rest of the way.
In the third, Crow-Armstrong lined a single with an exit velocity of 101.7 mph to right field off Cardinals starter Kyle Leahy. In the fifth, he smashed a screaming liner that came off the bat at 110.3 mph and hit off the base of the wall in right for a double.
In the eighth, as Cardinals fans chanted “overrated” from the stands, PCA responded by crushing a homer that traveled a Statcast-projected 444 feet into the “tarps off” section in right off reliever Gordon Graceffo. That homer had an exit velocity of 114.6 mph.
PCA capped off his big night at the plate with a ninth-inning single to drive in Chicago’s sixth run.
But he wasn’t done just yet.
Fittingly, given his contributions on offense, Crow-Armstrong made a tremendous sliding catch to rob Jordan Walker of extra bases and end the game. According to Statcast, his sprint speed on the play was an elite 30.2 feet per second.
Although he was showing some subtle signs of breaking out of his offensive funk in recent days, Crow-Armstrong truly broke out in a major way on Saturday, and the Cubs hope it’s a sign of things to come.