Crow-Armstrong, Suzuki Power Cubs Past Baltimore in Homer Fest
Pete Crow-Armstrong went 2-for-4 with 2 home runs, 2 RBI, and 3 runs scored as the Cubs outlasted Baltimore 9-7 on Wednesday. Six different Chicago hitters went deep in a game that featured nine combined home runs.
Chicago grabbed the lead first when Crow-Armstrong homered to right (370 feet) in the third, but Baltimore answered immediately — a Henderson double-play grounder plated a run to tie it, then Pete Alonso crushed a two-run shot to center (411 feet) in the fourth to put Baltimore up 3-1. That swing was the single biggest momentum shift of the night: Baltimore's win probability jumped from 62% to 80% on the Alonso blast, and the Cubs were suddenly staring at a deficit with Dean Kremer dealing.
What happened next is the story of the night. Chicago didn't flinch. The Cubs strung together three consecutive home runs in the fifth — Conforto to right (368 feet), Kelly to left (404 feet), and then Crow-Armstrong again, this time 419 feet to right center — to flip a 3-1 hole into a 4-3 lead. Kremer was done after five innings, having allowed 4 earned runs on 6 hits. The Cubs then blew the game open in the seventh. A Bregman sacrifice fly, a Wolfram wild pitch that scored Swanson, and then Seiya Suzuki's three-run bomb to left (401 feet) — with Crow-Armstrong and Busch aboard — turned a one-run edge into a 9-3 cushion. Colin Rea gave Chicago 5.1 innings of work, allowing 3 earned runs on 7 hits, and Jacob Webb tossed a clean inning of relief.
Baltimore made it interesting late but never threatening. Tyler O'Neill went 2-for-2 with two home runs — a solo shot to left (369 feet) in the seventh and a 433-foot blast to left center in the eighth — and Mayo added a solo homer (420 feet) in the eighth to make it 9-7. But that's as close as it got. The Cubs' bullpen held, and Chicago walked away with the win. O'Neill's two-homer, two-RBI night looks like the lone bright spot in a Baltimore lineup that couldn't recover from the seventh-inning collapse. For Chicago, Crow-Armstrong and Suzuki appear to be hitting at a different level right now — combining for 3 home runs, 5 RBI, and 4 runs scored between them in a single game is the kind of output that wins series.