The Cubs and Cardinals have been playing playoff-atmosphere baseball in the middle of the regular season, and Wednesday night's finale in St. Louis was no different. Chicago and the Cardinals traded runs into extras before the Cubs pulled it out 4-2 in the 10th, closing out the road trip on a high note before heading back to Wrigley.
Extra-innings chaos down the right-field line with the Cubs clinging to a 4-2 lead in the top of the 10th.
Games between these two have had a habit of going long lately. Just a night earlier, Crow-Armstrong had launched a go-ahead homer in the 10th only to watch the Cardinals answer with a walk-off double from Ivan Herrera to steal that one back. Wednesday, Chicago made sure the extra frame ended their way instead.
Crow-Armstrong wasn't just doing damage at the plate — he was saving runs in the field too. With the Cardinals threatening in the 10th, the Cubs' outfield made the plays that mattered, and Barstool Chicago credited the kid with keeping St. Louis off the board when it counted.
A diving outfield catch snuffs out a Cardinals scoring chance in the top of the 10th with Chicago clinging to a 4-2 edge.
The nickname "MVPete" isn't just a bit anymore. Crow-Armstrong has 23 home runs and 26 stolen bases on the year, and his numbers are running neck-and-neck with Shohei Ohtani's across the board — batting average, on-base percentage, and he's actually got Ohtani beat in homers. His defense has been the separator: his Fielding Run Value leads all of baseball, and combined with his glove and legs, he'd entered Wednesday atop FanGraphs' NL WAR leaderboard. His walk rate has also climbed from under 5% last year to over 11% this season, a jump that's historically rare for a player who wasn't already drawing walks at a high clip.
That surge has turned the MVP conversation from a punchline into a real debate, and Barstool's Marty Mush isn't hedging on where he stands.
Marty Mush lays out why he thinks the NL MVP race isn't even close with Crow-Armstrong in the field.
Ohtani remains the favorite in most sportsbooks' eyes, but the gap has been closing fast — Crow-Armstrong's MVP odds have reportedly gone from a longshot near +3000 to inside +200 in a matter of weeks. Wins like Wednesday's, with him swinging the bat and making the defensive plays that erase Cardinals rallies, are exactly the kind of tape that keeps building the case.
For the Cubs, the bigger picture is just as important as the individual numbers. Beating St. Louis in extras on the road is the type of division win that separates contenders from pretenders down the stretch, and Chicago is stacking these up against its biggest rival while riding its best player's best season.