NEW YORK -- The Mets once dreamed of Pete Crow-Armstrong batting leadoff at Citi Field, belting home runs, stealing bases, making brilliant catches in center field.
But not like this. Not for the Cubs.
Crow-Armstrong showed all the tools that make him such a dynamic player this weekend against the Mets -- capped off by a moonshot home run into the upper deck in right field in Sunday's 6-2 loss in the series finale.
It was PCA's first career home run against the Mets in 10 games against the team that drafted him in the first round in 2020. Five years later, after trading Crow-Armstrong to the Cubs in the Javier Báez trade on July 30, 2021, the Mets have to watch him blossom into a star for Chicago.
But if you ask him, PCA will tell you none of it matters, because the Cubs lost Sunday's game after the Mets rallied for a four-run eighth inning. And though the Cubs are still in first place in the NL Central, they've now lost back-to-back series for the first time all year ... so that home run against the team that traded him doesn't mean a thing right now.
"Nothing. Nothing," Crow-Armstrong said. "If it has no impact on how this game ends, I don't give a [crap]."
Maybe he'll feel differently when he looks back on it at the end of the season, especially if he keeps putting up the numbers he is right now.
Justin Turner would know. The veteran went through a similar enough trajectory to his young teammate. The Mets let Turner go early in his career, before he transformed into a star slugger with the Dodgers and returned to crush the Mets over and over again.
"Yeah, it feels good," Turner said. "Anytime you play a team that moved on from you, you obviously want to have success. Whether you say it or not, it's always a good feeling to be successful against a team that traded you away."
Crow-Armstrong now has 10 home runs this season. That's as many as he hit in all of 2024, in one-third of the games played. He's on pace to push for a 40-homer season.
PCA is one of only a dozen Major Leaguers with double-digit home runs this year. The Cubs have two of them: Crow-Armstrong and Kyle Tucker. Only two other teammate duos have 10-plus homers each: the Yankees' Aaron Judge and Trent Grisham: and the D-backs' Eugenio Suárez and Corbin Carroll.
The emergence of Crow-Armstrong at the plate in 2025 is the difference from when he visited Citi Field for the first time as a big leaguer last April. Back then, he was a speed-and-defense specialist. Now, he's just all-around electric -- with his bat, glove and wheels.
Crow-Armstrong impacted the series against the Mets in all three phases. The power came on Sunday, but he sparked Saturday's 6-5 win, too.
Batting leadoff for the first time all season on Saturday with Ian Happ out with oblique discomfort, Crow-Armstrong got things started with a single and immediately stole second. His speed forced a bad throw from catcher Francisco Alvarez -- Crow-Armstrong reached a top sprint speed of 29.1 ft/sec on the steal, way above the MLB average of 27 ft/sec -- allowing him to take third, too. He then scored on Seiya Suzuki's base hit.
That stolen base was his 13th of the season, putting Crow-Armstrong on pace for over 50. Crow-Armstrong, Tucker and Shohei Ohtani are the only players in the Majors with at least 10 homers and 10 steals in 2025.
Then there was the defense. In the bottom of the first on Saturday, PCA ranged deep into the right-center-field gap to take an extra-base hit away from Juan Soto. It's the type of play that Crow-Armstrong makes look effortless with his elite range, but it's a catch most MLB outfielders don't make. Crow-Armstrong's catch probability on the play was just 35%.
He almost made a nearly impossible catch on Sunday, too. On Luis Torrens' triple high off the left-center-field fence in the second inning, Crow-Armstrong was inches away from an incredible grab -- on a play where he had to cover 117 feet at a full sprint and jump for the ball at the wall.
Basically no one makes that catch. But all Crow-Armstrong said was, "I should have made a play."
That's just his attitude. He thinks he can catch every ball. But really, even that one?
"Absolutely," Crow-Armstrong said.