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Pete Crow-Armstrong Hits Three Home Runs In Cubs' Rout Of Reds

By Bush Staff·2 min read
Pete Crow-Armstrong Hits Three Home Runs In Cubs' Rout Of Reds
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Pete Crow-Armstrong went deep three times at Wrigley Field, and Cubs fans spent the whole game chanting MVP.

The Cubs and Reds got going Saturday at Wrigley, and it took Pete Crow-Armstrong about one at-bat to make it his afternoon. Leadoff home run, 105.8 mph off the bat, Cubs up 1-0 before the Reds even hit.

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Barstool Baseball
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MVPete

A Cubs home run trot at Wrigley Field, with a fan-cam shot of the crowd celebrating in the outfield seats and an on-screen exit velocity of 105.8 MPH; scoreboard shows Cubs 1, opponent 0, top of the 1st, 0 outs.

That would've been a fine day on its own. Instead it was just the opener. Crow-Armstrong came back and took Reds starter Andrew Abbott deep again, and by the time Barstool Chicago got the second one on tape, the Cubs had blown the game open.

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Barstool Chicago
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2 HOMERS IN 2 INNINGS FOR MVPETE

Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field, scoreboard shows Cubs 4 Reds 2 with a stadium crowd shot; a Cubs player wearing a helmet and pinstripe jersey with CROW-ARMSTRONG on the back jogs the bases as a HOME RUN graphic displays on screen, followed by a wide crowd shot with score updated to Cubs 6 Reds 2.

Two off Abbott wasn't the ceiling. Crow-Armstrong got a third in the 7th inning off reliever Tony Santillan, and per the Chicago Sun-Times, it was the first three-homer game of his career. The crowd chanted "MVP! MVP!" as he rounded the bases, and out in the bleachers, fans were fighting over the ball.

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Barstool Sports
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Fans were competing in the stands at Wrigley as PCA hit his 3rd HR of the game

Fans in the outfield bleacher seats at Wrigley Field turn and react excitedly, with some climbing over seats and railings while others look surprised or point, as a ball appears to land nearby among the crowd; the stadium scoreboard and jumbotron are visible in the background.

The math on the day gets absurd fast: Cubs 17, Reds 5, and Crow-Armstrong nearly made it a 4th homer, grounding out to second against catcher Jose Trevino in the 8th with a shot to add to the total. It didn't matter — the Cubs bats were rolling well before that at-bat came up.

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Barstool Baseball
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How bout those Cubs bats

Cubs player rounding third base after a home run at Wrigley Field, scoreboard shows Cubs leading 7-5 in the bottom of the 5th inning against a team with a red script C logo

This isn't a one-game hot streak lifting a middling player into the spotlight. Crow-Armstrong entered Saturday with 36 home runs on the season and led all of baseball in WAR — 8.6 per FanGraphs, 7.9 per Baseball Reference — numbers that already had the MVP conversation going before he did this. A three-homer game against the Reds just made it impossible to ignore.

The scene around the city matched the moment. At one Chicago bar, patrons noted every TV in the building flipped to the Cubs game instead of the UNC-TCU matchup, debate-bait or not, that's the kind of afternoon this turned into.

Nicky Smokes
Nicky Smokes
@nickysmokess

Embrace debate: Yes we’re at a bar in Chicago. But switching EVERY TV in the bar to the cubs game and not having UNC/TCU on any TV is crazy, right?

Crow-Armstrong is 24 and in just his 2nd full big-league season, and days like this are why the Cubs' outfield decision a couple years back looks better by the month. If the WAR gap holds up the rest of the way, Saturday's three-homer game against Cincinnati becomes the signature highlight of an MVP case that was already building.

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