One hundred and fifty years of franchise history can cast a long shadow. With an ensemble of former Cubs at Wrigley on Saturday to be honored as a part of the franchise’s all-time roster looking on, Pete Crow-Armstrong both cemented his case to be counted among that group and for this year’s National League MVP award.
Crow-Armstrong had two home runs by the end of the second inning in the Cubs’ 17-5 victory over the Reds. He ended the day with three homers, pushing his season total to 36. With four more this season, Crow-Armstrong will join Billy Williams as the only left-handed hitters in Cubs’ history to hit 40 in a season.
At the rate Crow-Armstrong is going, he might hit those four in the next two days.
“You see guys do this, and it doesn’t happen a lot,” manager Craig Counsell said. “It’s the seasons that you remember somebody having, and we’re lucky to be a part of it. I think as a fan in the stands, and for his teammates, for the coaching staff, watching somebody perform like this is something special.”
Before Saturday’s performance, Crow-Armstrong’s fWAR was two runs higher than the next best player, Bobby Witt, Jr. After going 4-for-6 with the three home runs, Crow-Armstrong climbed over nine wins above replacement, putting him in company with Rogers Hornsby, Sammy Sosa, Ernie Banks, and Ron Santo for the best seasons in team history.
That’s select company in the grand scheme of Cubs’ franchise history, and in the more immediate world of this year’s National League MVP race, Crow-Armstrong is pulling away. But perhaps a part of what’s helped him put together such an historic season is not paying a lot of attention to those kinds of things.
“Everybody’s starting to ask a lot of questions about WAR right now, so I don’t know how to feel about WAR,” Crow-Armstrong joked after Saturday’s game. “Whatever I can do to produce a win is really what I care about most.”
Crow-Armstrong said that he hears the MVP chants every time he goes to bat, but he prefers the sound of the Wrigley fans singing “Go Cubs Go” after a win. That’s a healthy perspective for a player not yet 25 years old. It’s important, too, because the Cubs are entering the final month of the season badly needing to stack some wins.
Thanks to a 1-5 road trip through Seattle and Arizona last week, their chances of catching the Brewers for the division title look increasingly small, even with seven head-to-head matchups against Milwaukee remaining.
Instead, the Cubs need to keep winning so they can hold off the Phillies — who, coming into Saturday trailed the Cubs in the wild card standings by only one game — for the top wild card spot and first-round home field advantage.
“You’re just trying to win games. I think we would all say we would rather play at home than on the road. Every team’s going to tell you that,” Counsell said. “But in the end, you have to win road playoff games to win the World Series. You’ve got to be able to do both. I think anybody who’s experienced playoff games at Wrigley would say the more we can play at Wrigley [the better]. Frankly, it’s an incredible experience.”
In the Cubs’ 150-year history, they have reached the postseason in back-to-back years just four times, and one of those was in the 19th century. Barring a seismic final month collapse, they will get back to the playoffs for the second year in a row this October.
Crow-Armstrong is likely to be a driving force behind avoiding any sort of late-season slide. The Cubs’ lineup is deep — the bottom third went 8-for-12 on Saturday — but Crow-Armstrong’s ability to impact a game at the plate, on the basepaths, and on defense is unmatched.
“He can change the game in so many different ways,” Alex Bregman said. “One day it’s hitting three homers, the next day it’s making three diving plays, or just running down balls that nobody else can go catch out there in center field.
“Next day it’s stealing third and the ball going out in left field and him scoring. It’s just so many different things he can do on a baseball field and impact a baseball game and energize the whole group.”
Crow-Armstrong was always good on defense and on the basepaths, but before this season, a significant barrier to him fully breaking out at the plate was facing left-handed pitching. He batted just .188 against lefties in 2025. That split has jumped to over .300 this season.
His walk rate has also more than doubled over last year, and Crow-Armstrong has cut his outside of the strike zone swing rate by about eight percent from 2025 while also making hard contact at a 41.3% rate in 2026, up about ten percent from last year.
“It’s getting on the dish and learning the strike zone better, and I think I’m just getting better naturally as a baseball player overall,” Crow-Armstrong said of his growth.
Counsell said these improvements are the product of a lot of hard work on Crow-Armstrong’s part, paired with an already high baseball IQ and natural athleticism that have only improved from last season.
“Pete’s done some things this year that really haven’t been done in a long time,” Counsell said. “There’s a lot of things that have just changed tremendously, and it’s a credit to his continued work.
“[He] has gone quickly to another level.”
Crow-Armstrong said the most nerve-wracking part of his day on Saturday was taking pregame batting practice in the cage with Cubs luminaries like Sosa and Williams looking on. Sosa, who had six career games with at least three home runs, told Crow-Armstrong he expected three longballs out of him that day.
“I saw him in the lobby here today, and he was just telling me to keep going and he’s not satisfied,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I love that kind of stuff. Before the game today, we were just in the cage talking again, and he [said] ‘I want three out of you today.’
“Sure enough, I don’t know what he passed down to me there, but weird shit like that happens in this game.”
In a matter of months, we’ll know where the 2026 Cubs will fit among the teams in franchise history, but it’s already clear that Crow-Armstrong’s individual season should get him an MVP award and his place among the greatest to wear a Cubs uniform.
