Pete Crow-Armstrong Found Just Enough Plate Discipline to Save the Cubs' Season

The Chicago Cubs immediately put themselves in the driver’s seat of Wednesday’s season-saving victory over the Milwaukee Brewers with a big, four-run first inning. In the process, they broke the team’s streak of scoring three or fewer runs in 13 consecutive playoff games, and we all better thank our lucky stars for that. They needed every one of those four runs, and they can’t score after the first inning, for some reason. 

Pete Crow-Armstrong was arguably the most important cog in that first-inning rally. The young center fielder stepped to the plate with the bases loaded and two outs. This felt even bigger than that, though, given that Carson Kelly struck out just before Crow-Armstrong came to the plate. Had the Cubs come away from that rally with only one run (and that one, really, disconnected from the rally itself, because it came on a Michael Busch leadoff homer), it would have been devastating. It certainly felt like they should have had more. 

If you want to follow along with this by rewatching the whole at-bat, you can do so here, via MLB's YouTube channel.

Quinn Priester started Crow-Armstrong with a slider that began in the strike zone, and broke just below it. Predictably, being the swing-happy player that he is, Crow-Armstrong swung through the pitch for strike one:

This is nothing new. Crow-Armstrong swung at pitches outside of the strike zone 41.9 percent of the time this year, according to FanGraphs. That was the third-highest rate in baseball. In the playoffs, coming into this game, that number was up to 46.8%. If you execute a breaking ball just below the zone, you’re going to get a swing and a miss much of the time.

From there, Priester went even lower, opting for an 0-1 slider in the dirt, and then a 1-1 sinker at about the same spot. 

These might seem egregiously low, like you or I could lay off these pitches. However, in this postseason, Crow-Armstrong had swung at three of nine pitches in the waste zone, per Baseball Savant. Heck, he struck out on a pitch down there later in this very game, and here he is striking out on a very similar pitch just last game:

It’s called the waste zone because it’s typically where pitchers waste pitches, to get the hitter thinking about something else. You might get a swing out of a particularly aggressive hitter, or on a particularly nasty pitch, but not in most cases. The big problem with Crow-Armstrong lately has been that he's that hitter who gets himself out for you much of the time. In this huge moment, however, he managed not to expand, twice in a row.

So now, Crow-Armstrong is right back in this plate appearance after chasing a ball on the first pitch. He laid off two pitches that have been kryptonite for him so far in these playoffs. You likely know what happened next:

He got a 2-1 slider that hung over the middle of the plate, and he lined it into right field for a big two-out hit. He was patient, waited for his pitch, got it, and did damage with it.

After that, he took off to steal second base, and William Contreras, in his haste to attempt to throw Crow-Armstrong out, let the ball pass him by, which allowed Ian Happ to score the Cubs’ fourth run of the inning—the run that ultimately guaranteed they’d win the game. 

It hasn’t always been pretty for Crow-Armstrong in these playoffs. Really, since start of the second half of the season, it's all been ugly. Even the good has been ugly. Watching him adjust in real time, lock in, and produce a big hit for the Cubs in such a huge moment was really rewarding, though, and without it, I am confident in saying that I’d currently be writing about the end of the Cubs’ season. Instead, we have a Game 4 to look forward to.