Cubs Roll Into KC With Crow-Armstrong Carrying a Loaded Bat

A Cubs team sitting 19 games over .500 heads to Kauffman Stadium tonight for a 7:10 PM ET first pitch against a Royals squad that has spent most of this summer treading water at 48-69. The gap in the standings is real, but baseball has a way of making records irrelevant on any given Saturday night.

Chicago sends Clay Holmes to the mound, with Seth Lugo expected to start for Kansas City. On paper, this is a pitching matchup worth watching — but the story coming into tonight is what Pete Crow-Armstrong has been doing with a bat in his hands. The Cubs outfielder is hitting .289 with 26 home runs and 70 RBI on the season. Those are legitimate middle-of-the-order numbers, and at Kauffman Stadium — a park that can play spacious — his ability to do damage in multiple ways makes him the most dangerous player on the field tonight.

Kansas City isn't without its own weapons. Bobby Witt Jr. is hitting .286 and remains one of the more dynamic players in the American League. Jac Caglianone has 18 home runs, which is a real power threat out of a lineup that hasn't had much to celebrate this year. Carter Jensen leads the club with 55 RBI. The Royals have individual pieces that can hurt you — the problem is that at 48-69, they haven't strung enough of those moments together consistently. Tonight, with Lugo expected to take the mound, they'll need him to keep Crow-Armstrong in the ballpark and give the offense a chance to work.

Our model doesn't have a validated read on this one, so we're not going to manufacture conviction where there isn't any. What we can say plainly: the Cubs are the better team by record, and Crow-Armstrong is the kind of player who can single-handedly swing a game. The Royals have enough pop to make things interesting, but Chicago's 68-49 mark didn't happen by accident. Watch Witt Jr. against Holmes early — that at-bat could set the tone for everything that follows.