Crow-Armstrong's 409-Foot Bomb Buries Mets Early, Cubs Win 9-6
Pete Crow-Armstrong's three-run homer to right center — 409 feet — turned a two-run Cubs lead into a 5-0 blowout in the second inning and effectively ended this game before New York could blink. Chicago walked away 9-6, handing a Mets team that already looks like it's running out of runway another gut-punch loss.
The second inning was the whole story. Chicago loaded the bases and cashed in methodically: a walk scored one, Dansby Swanson's sacrifice fly scored another, and then Crow-Armstrong unloaded to right center — 409 feet, three runs, 5-0 Cubs. That swing dropped New York's win probability from 27% to 10%, and the Mets spent the rest of the night trying to climb out of a hole they never should have been in. New York did claw back two runs in the bottom of the second on a Francisco Alvarez single to center that scored two, but the damage was already done.
Swanson was the engine that kept Chicago's offense humming after that. He went 2-for-3 with 4 RBI on the night — the sacrifice fly in the second, then a 380-foot solo shot to left in the fourth that pushed the lead to 7-2, and a two-run double in the eighth that made it 9-3. Carson Kelly was everywhere without making much noise in the hit column: he scored three times and drove in two, including a double in the eighth that set up Swanson's dagger. Crow-Armstrong finished 1-for-3 with 3 RBI — one swing did all the work.
New York's offense showed some life but it was cosmetic. Alvarez went 2-for-4 with a homer and 3 RBI — his 403-foot shot to center in the seventh trimmed the deficit to 7-3 — and Bo Bichette's two-run blast to right center in the ninth made the final 9-6 look more respectable than the game actually was. The Mets also had to deal with Juan Soto exiting after four innings, per ESPN, which looks like the last thing a struggling team needed. Edward Cabrera gave Chicago five innings, allowing 2 earned runs on 3 hits with 4 walks and 4 strikeouts — not dominant, but enough. Ryan Rolison came on and threw a clean inning with two strikeouts. For a Mets team that, per ESPN, its own front office is publicly calling a 'colossal disappointment,' this night had a little bit of everything going wrong at once.