Crow-Armstrong hits – Pete Crow-Armstrong went for the cycle, including a leadoff homer and a walk-off clincher that helped the Cubs beat the Rockies 5-4, but the night came with costly moments—an early pickoff and late bullpen damage—that left Chicago looking past the celebration
The cheers weren’t subtle, and they weren’t polite.
Over two weeks after the “Tarps Off” crowd in St. Louis rained chants of “O-VER-RATE-ED!” down on Pete Crow-Armstrong, six shirtless young fans were featured on the Jumbotron Monday night at Wrigley Field. Each of them held up one letter at a time, spelling “MVPETE” on their chests.
Crow-Armstrong had earned that moment with his own kind of statement. He hit for the cycle—going leadoff homer. triple. double. and single in a reverse cycle—and it became the 13th cycle in club history. But the win didn’t come cleanly. and the message on those chests didn’t capture everything that nearly went wrong.
“It’s really easy to highlight the stuff you’re not so happy about and you’ve got to make sure never happens again. ” Crow-Armstrong said after the game. The celebration landed anyway. after he deposited a home run 444 feet right into the laps of the Missouri hecklers earlier this month—but Monday’s emotions shifted fast when he was picked off first base while still being cheered.
Crow-Armstrong didn’t try to dress it up. He said he had a lapse in focus and that it “could have hurt us tonight.”
He also made it clear he’s been thinking less about personal milestones and more about the team’s larger goal. “We haven’t really been producing like we are so capable of doing,” he said. “When the ultimate goal is to win every ballgame that you step out on the field for. it’s really easy to highlight the stuff you’re not so happy about and you’ve got to make sure never happens again.”.
It was a night when his bat did nearly everything right. Since May 30, Crow-Armstrong has been hitting .453 with seven home runs and 14 extra-base hits. He kept that momentum going on Monday with a leadoff homer. and he also provided late-life to the game when it mattered. The Cubs loaded the bases in the bottom of the ninth, and they didn’t finish with just one spark.
Pedro Ramirez delivered a game-tying base hit, and Matt Shaw followed with a walk-off walk to secure a 5-4 win over the Rockies.
Still. the Cubs had to survive a pileup of mistakes that made the margin feel thinner than it should have been. In addition to Crow-Armstrong’s pickoff. the team stranded him after his leadoff triple in the third and after a one-out double in the fifth. The bullpen also wobbled: relievers issued a bases-loaded walk and surrendered a three-run homer.
By the time the last out of the regular drama arrived, the Cubs had been 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position and left 15 men on base.
Manager Craig Counsell summed it up without sugarcoating. “A lot felt like it didn’t go right,” he said. “Pete had an incredible night. Shota had a really good night. And then a lot of other things felt like they didn’t go right.”
The praise for Crow-Armstrong wasn’t limited to the scoreboard. Starting pitcher Shota Imanaga spoke through an interpreter after the game, saying, “Watching him every day, he’s a player that overcomes your imagination.”
The sequence Monday night made one thing undeniable: when Crow-Armstrong is cooking. the Cubs can look like a team with answers—especially in high-stakes swings that run deep into the late innings. But the fact that they nearly let a game slip away after his performance also carried a warning. A cycle and a walk-off don’t cancel out the damage from the pickoff. the wasted scoring chances. or the bullpen breakdown.
Crow-Armstrong acknowledged that this is only one step in a larger turn. “We are a scrappy team,” he said, “but we’re also going to be a team that feels more dangerous than scrappy once stuff gets rolling again.”
Halfway into June, his run has been loud enough to redraw expectations. It followed a home run into the Missouri crowd’s taunts and included a walk-off hit to beat the A’s and a two-homer game against the Giants, featuring a game-tying shot with the Cubs down to their last out.
Yet Counsell’s message was clear that “MVPETE” isn’t the whole story. When asked about what it takes to move past an early-summer stumble, he pointed to something broader than one hot streak.
“They’ll need more consistent offensive success. They’ll need more consistent pitching production. And they’ll need contributions from everyone,” he said. Counsell added that the roster-wide lift mattered Monday night: “When you talk about how you’re going to need the whole roster to help you win games. that’s what happened tonight. That’s why you win. because you get a bunch of guys on the roster to maybe pick another guy up. That’s what they did tonight.”.
Pete Crow-Armstrong Cubs Rockies cycle Shota Imanaga Craig Counsell Wrigley Field Matt Shaw Pedro Ramirez