Crow-Armstrong Torches Atlanta, Cubs Roll 7-3
Pete Crow-Armstrong went 4-for-5 with a home run and 4 RBI, single-handedly dismantling Atlanta's pitching on Monday night. The Cubs needed exactly one player to carry them — and he delivered from the second inning on.
Chicago wasted no time. In the second inning, Carson Kelly grounded into a fielder's choice that scored Happ, putting the Cubs on the board. Then Crow-Armstrong stepped up and doubled to right, scoring both Hoerner and Kelly to push it to 3-0. That two-run double was the decisive blow of the night — Chicago's win probability swung from 73% to 87% on that single swing of the bat. Atlanta never recovered from it.
The Cubs kept piling on in the third. Hoerner singled to right to score Busch, and Conforto followed with a double to right that plated Hoerner, making it 5-0. AJ Smith-Shawver lasted just 5.0 innings for Atlanta, allowing 4 hits, 2 earned runs, and 3 walks while generating only 2 strikeouts — the kind of outing that looks, from the outside, like a starter who never found his footing. Crow-Armstrong put the finishing touch on the scoring in the sixth, launching a 373-foot home run to right center that scored Kelly and pushed the lead to 7-0. Four RBI on the night. The story of the game was that simple. Meanwhile, David Peterson was quietly excellent on the other side: 6.0 innings, 3 hits, 1 earned run, and 7 strikeouts. He gave Chicago exactly what it needed — length and dominance — while his offense did the heavy lifting early.
Atlanta's seventh-inning rally was too little, too late. Harris II scored on a fielder's choice, and then Yastrzemski crushed a 407-foot home run to center that scored Murphy and made it 7-3. Yastrzemski finished 1-for-1 with 2 RBI, and Harris II went 2-for-4, but the Braves' offense was largely a ghost for six innings. Ryan Zeferjahn and Ryan Rolison each threw a scoreless inning out of the Chicago bullpen to close things out. The final: Cubs 7, Braves 3. Crow-Armstrong appears to be operating on a different level right now, and Chicago's lineup looks deep enough that even a quiet night from most contributors doesn't matter when he's locked in like this.