CHICAGO -- After connecting with the baseball and watching its flight for a brief moment, Pete Crow-Armstrong turned and let his bat fall away from his hands. It was as if the piece of lumber was simply too hot for the Cubs star to handle. That sure seems to be the case right now.
One day after piecing together his first career three-homer performance -- at the request of former Cubs great Sammy Sosa, no less -- Crow-Armstrong opened Sunday night’s game against the Reds with another blast. The M-V-P chants that have been gaining steam of late were full-throated once again at Wrigley Field.
Crow-Armstrong put a charge into a 98.9 mph fastball from Reds flamethrower Chase Burns, launching it out to right field with a 108 mph exit velocity, per Statcast. The home run was the ninth leadoff homer of the season for Crow-Armstrong, who trails only Alfonso Soriano (12 in 2007) for the most such shots in a season in Cubs history.
Six of those leadoff homers have come this month, making this one of the more prolific power displays out of the first spot of a lineup in baseball history. Kyle Schwarber (June of '21) and Soriano (September of '07) share the MLB record with seven leadoff homers in a single month, per MLB.com’s Sarah Langs.
According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Crow-Armstrong is also the fourth player in MLB history with a leadoff homer one game after a three-homer showing. Schwarber (Sept. 4, 2024), Brian Dozier (Sept. 6, 2016) and Mookie Betts (June 1, 2016) are also on that niche list. Earlier this month, Crow-Armstrong led off with a homer (Aug. 18) one game after homering on the first and last pitch of a win over the White Sox.
Crow-Armstrong now has 37 home runs this season, which puts him closer to a mark not seen on the North Side in a long time. Only once in Cubs history has a left-handed hitter reached 40 blasts in one campaign. That was Sweet Swingin’ Billy Wiliams, who had 42 homers in 1970. That is another part of the team record book that Crow-Armstrong has a chance to rewrite.
Crow-Armstrong’s 30 home runs since the start of June are six more than any other Major Leaguer in that span.
At the moment, Crow-Armstrong also has 32 stolen bases to go with his home runs. He has a real shot at a 40-40 performance this season, which has only been done six times in MLB history (most recently by Shohei Ohtani in 2024). The Cubs center fielder is already the only player to go 30-30 in back-to-back seasons in franchise history, and joined Sosa (1993 and ‘95) as the only players in team annals to have two such tours.