CHICAGO -- Pete Crow-Armstrong hadn’t taken a day off all season. Entering Wednesday, the Cubs’ star center fielder had started all 67 games this year, playing each contest from the first inning to the last, even if it went into extras.
So when manager Craig Counsell gave him a rare off-day in Wednesday’s finale against the Phillies, Crow-Armstrong was less than thrilled.
“Pete was not happy,” Counsell said ahead of Thursday night’s series opener against the Pirates. “He just wants to go out there and play. He was just disappointed. ‘Disappointed’ is probably the better word.”
Crow-Armstrong certainly didn’t let the day off halt his momentum. The 23-year-old got right back to his monstrous 2025 campaign on Thursday, cracking a two-run home run in the fourth for his team-high 18th of the season in the Cubs’ 3-2 win at Wrigley Field.
“I’m ready to play every day,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I don’t ever want the off-day, but ‘Couns’ has every one of our best interests in mind. So I trust all the decisions he makes, whether I fight him on it a little bit or not.
“Sometimes, when it’s a day off, I don’t know what to do with myself. [Was I] Antsy? No. Locked in? Yes.”
Crow-Armstrong proved that in his second at-bat of the night. His drive provided Chicago's first runs after the lineup struggled to get much going against Pittsburgh starter Andrew Heaney. The Bucs’ southpaw held the Cubs hitless through the first three frames before Kyle Tucker’s fourth-inning single. Two batters later, Crow-Armstrong swung at a 2-2 four-seamer that was 3.90 feet above the plate, sending it a Statcast-projected 393 feet into the right-field bleachers.
It marked the highest pitch Crow-Armstrong has hit for a homer in his career. He also homered on the two lowest pitches hit for a homer in this MLB season -- 1.08 feet off the ground against the Rockies on May 28 and 0.86 feet against the Brewers on May 2.
“There’s really no clear way to attack him,” said Cubs starting pitcher Jameson Taillon, who struck out seven and allowed just two runs over 6 1/3 innings for his sixth consecutive quality start. “We all thought he was going to hit in the big leagues, but the power is crazy. He’s putting balls way back in the seats against good, tough pitches.”
The results Crow-Armstrong is getting on pitches outside of the zone certainly may seem surprising on paper. He entered Thursday with a 44.0% chase rate, nearly double the MLB average of 28.4%.
Yet, that extreme willingness to hunt pitches out of the zone hasn’t resulted in a high strikeout rate. It also has done little to slow down a level of success that’ll surely earn Crow-Armstrong plenty of love on this year’s All-Star ballot.
"Sometimes he hits it off the ground; sometimes he hits it over his head,” said Cubs reliever Ryan Pressly, who worked a perfect ninth to seal his fifth save of the season. “I don’t even know how to pitch Pete, to be honest with you.”
It’s surprising commentary when you consider how difficult Crow-Armstrong's introduction to big league pitching was when he arrived in 2023. He went hitless in his first 14 MLB games and was batting .188 as recently as last July 30.
Just 317 days later, that same player entered Thursday leading the NL with 3.6 wins above replacement, per FanGraphs.
“I’ve had a bunch of reality checks,” Crow-Armstrong said of his time in the Majors. “The hand-holding that kind of went on the last year or two, I had a lot of people [that] just pushed me in the right direction.
“The downs have been big, and great learning experiences once I got out of my own way. You mix that in with a lot of good advice and being able to filter out the right things and the wrong things, and that’s hugely contributed to how I feel going to the park every day.”
Thursday night brought more evidence that Crow-Armstrong is feeling better than ever this season. He has spent 2025 putting up numbers that have caught even his own teammates by surprise, providing impact hits no matter where opposing pitchers try to attack him.
And as Crow-Armstrong showed in the fourth inning, that ability to expand the zone doesn’t appear to be hindered by taking a day off.
“What you’ve seen in 30 years of baseball says it’s hard to hit balls for home runs,” Counsell said. “He’s proven me wrong.”