PCA Sets Several New Precedents in Monday’s Win
You just knew Pete Crow-Armstrong was due after going 1-for-12 with four strikeouts in his three previous games, especially when he’d been hitting the ball hard the whole time, and making history in the process was not out of the question. He set or tied at least two team records, joined an elite group of franchise superstars, and essentially created a new category for repeated offensive excellence during Monday’s win. PCA also got another step closer to joining the 40/40 club, with membership now just three steals away.
The MVP-in-waiting went 4-for-5 with a double, a homer, and four runs batted in to push to 10.1 fWAR for the season. It was the eighth time he’d homered and stolen a base in the same game this season, passing Ryne Sandberg in 1991 for most in Cubs history. That homer was also PCA’s 42nd, which ties him with Billy Williams for the most in franchise history by a left-handed hitter. Without throwing any shade on the sweet-swingin’ legend, doing it against a great deal more pitchers adds more impressiveness to the feat in my estimation.
Monday was also the seventh time this season that PCA has had four-plus hits with multiple extra-base hits and a homer. While it’s a little esoteric, no other player in the modern era (since 1901) has as many such games in a season. The four driven in pushed him to 102 this season, giving him just the 12th campaign in Cubs history with 40+ home runs, 100+ runs scored, and 100+ RBI.
Only six other Cubs have ever reached those heights: Sammy Sosa (5x), Ernie Banks (2x), Derrek Lee, Hack Wilson, Williams, and Sandberg. When you factor in the steals, Crow-Armstrong’s exploits really stand out. Sosa never stole more than 18 bases in a season during his streak, and he totaled only 34 over those five seasons. Banks had 50 steals in his entire career; Wilson had 52; Williams had 90 without collecting more than 10 in any season; Lee stole 15 bags in that monster campaign, with 104 in his career; and Sandberg swiped 25 in 1990 to help him reach 344 over parts of 16 seasons.
I’ll spare you any additional commentary on the defense, other than to say that having that glove while also being the more powerful offensive force in the game is mind-blowing. PCA is two off the MLB home run lead, 10 ahead in runs scored, eight back in RBI, and four away in steals. You can talk about pitching all you want, but no one else is doing anything close to this in terms of all-around excellece.
Bobby Witt Jr. is the most adequate comp, and he’s second in MLB with 6.5 fWAR, but he still wouldn’t be close even if he hadn’t missed roughly two weeks due to low back tightness. What PCA is doing right now is something we have literally never seen before, and it’s all happening for the Cubs because the Mets have remained an unmitigated dumpster fire for years. It provides me with a little extra boost of joy to know how badly they mucked up that trade, but I’m also so petty that people sometimes call me Richard.
With 11 games to go in the season, Crow-Armstrong can reset the record books a few more times. Let’s just hope his doing so isn’t the only thing we end up remembering about this season.
