SAN DIEGO — One of Pete Crow-Armstrong’s batting gloves wound up near a trash can in Petco Park’s visiting dugout. The Chicago Cubs’ young star might have given the other one to a fan. Batting practice before Tuesday’s game had gone so poorly that he entered the tunnel that leads toward the visitors’ clubhouse and screamed.
As part of his routine, Crow-Armstrong usually takes early batting practice, preferring the quiet of an empty stadium several hours before first pitch. This time, he believed he needed the extra session and wanted to feel the movements of his left-handed swing.
Juan Cabreja, Chicago’s assistant hitting coach, kept grooving pitches down the middle, Crow-Armstrong said, “and I’m hitting the top of the cage.” As he walked off the field, the frustrations boiled over.
“The BP was s—,” Crow-Armstrong said, but it also served a purpose. “It’s nice that I got my emotions out in that way before the game and could kind of bring the focus back to what really matters.”
By the time a sellout crowd of 40,106 showed up, Crow-Armstrong was ready to compete.
He launched a three-run homer over the center-field wall in the seventh inning of Tuesday’s 8-3 victory over the San Diego Padres, perhaps a sign that he may finally be heating up.
In Wednesday afternoon’s 5-4 win, Crow-Armstrong lifted a two-run homer into the right-field seats and drove in another run with a groundball on a contact play against tough lefty Adrian Morejon.
The Cubs have been waiting for that kind of spark — while still marveling at his Gold Glove defense in center field — because they have seen Crow-Armstrong perform at an MVP level. Maybe this is a turning point, the same way it was during last season’s April West Coast trip that created the momentum that carried him to the All-Star Game.
After producing one home run in his first 29 games this season, Crow-Armstrong hit two in less than 24 hours. That power surge, combined with Jameson Taillon’s quality start and Ben Brown’s eighth-inning escape from a no-outs, bases-loaded jam he inherited, helped complete a 3-3 trip through Dodger Stadium and San Diego.
Crow-Armstrong thinks that facing a parade of left-handed pitchers has sharpened his approach. He appreciated a pep talk from second baseman Nico Hoerner and the support shown by manager Craig Counsell’s coaching staff. His .669 OPS is underwhelming but trending in the right direction. This is a streaky player who will keep trying to figure it out.
“It’s just being able to trust that the at-bats end up paying off somehow,” Crow-Armstrong said. “There’s never a time you want to be like, ‘All right, I’m starting to get hot.’ It’s continuing to have good conversations. It’s continuing to know what I want to do before I get in the box, so then it just becomes about being an athlete. It’s continuing to understand how people are going to try and get me to swing at s—.”
• Cubs closer Daniel Palenica has progressed to the point where the club is considering activating him Friday for the start of a three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Wrigley Field. That timeline would be a rare piece of good news amid all the injuries that have hit Chicago’s pitching staff.
Initially diagnosed with a strained oblique, Palenica underwent an MRI that subsequently identified a lat injury. That location on his non-throwing side allowed him to be on a program that may bypass a minor-league rehab assignment. Although he hasn’t pitched in a game since April 12, he could be throwing 100 mph fastballs in the ninth inning very soon.
• All along, Justin Steele wanted to be ready for the biggest games of the season. Decisions would be made with October in mind as he recovered from last year’s season-ending elbow surgery. That possibility — starting a postseason game at Wrigley Field — remains in play.
Still, there’s no escaping the disappointment after Tuesday’s visit with Dr. Keith Meister in Texas. A flexor strain in Steele’s left elbow pushed his projected return from late May/early June to sometime after the All-Star break, barring another setback.
“It’s hard to put into words the emotions and mental state that something like this can leave you in,” Steele wrote on his X account. “… I just know I have given 100 (percent) and have done everything that’s been asked of me.”
• Given his ironman reputation, it set off alarm bells when Gold Glove shortstop Dansby Swanson was pulled from Tuesday’s game in the second inning. It only got more confusing with the announcement that he exited with a “left glute cramp.”
The Cubs held Swanson out of Wednesday’s lineup as a precaution.
“I don’t even know how to really explain it,” Swanson said. “I almost felt like I got charley horsed. I think I charley horsed myself on a bad slide. It just hadn’t let up from that feeling for a couple minutes, so let’s not do anything stupid. Because even if it is just a charley horse, you don’t want to do anything to make it actually be something. My pride didn’t want to, but my brain won the battle this time.”
• Ideally, Moisés Ballesteros would keep working on his catching skills and reach the level where the Cubs are comfortable pairing him with anyone on the 13-man pitching staff. It would also be optimal if Ballesteros rarely catches this season because that would mean co-starters Carson Kelly and Miguel Amaya are healthy.
A middle-of-the-order hitter — who can also handle a premium defensive position while making a pre-arbitration salary — would be one of the sport’s most valuable players.
First, though, the Cubs are planning to take gradual steps. It’s not a coincidence that Ballesteros received his first start of the season at catcher on the same night that Matthew Boyd was pitching. The 35-year-old lefty is a well-prepared starter with a pleasant, encouraging demeanor and an ability to control the running game.
In tracking Ballesteros since workouts during spring training last year, Boyd has noticed improvements.
“Bally’s awesome,” Boyd said. “He’s come so far from where we were when I first got to the Cubs to today. He’s sufficient behind the plate. That’s not even the right word. He’s good back there. He does the job well. That’s just the evolution. He’s a 22-year-old with an advanced approach to hitting. He’s working his tail off on the defensive side. I feel fine throwing to him anytime.”
