First Homer in 19 Games Puts PCA on Precipice of 30/30 Club

There are no velvet ropes or surly bouncers outside the Cubs’ 30/30 club, but it’s still so exclusive that only one other man has ever been admitted. And he was a pariah until this season, so it’s quite fitting that a second member should be joining soon. That player is Pete Crow-Armstrong, who would have been just as surprised as the rest of us if someone had said back in February that he’d show this much power.

“I think as I played better this year, my own expectations grew for myself,” PCA told Marquee after Monday’s win. “But Pipi’s been saying it to me recently, where it’s like, ‘You’ve already done your season, stat-wise, right?’ I did not go into spring training thinking I’d hit 28 home runs, 20-whatever, so there is perspective in that that I’m continuing to find out about and understand a little bit more…

“But, whether good or bad, we’ve got playoff baseball to play, so those games matter.”

First things first, I had a bear of a time figuring out who he was referring to there. I first thought it was PB, but I could find nothing other than an AI-generated hint saying one of PCA’s teammates nicknamed him that as shorthand for peanut butter. Pretty sure that’s BS, unless he’s channeling Rickey Henderson by talking about himself in the third person.

After wondering aloud whether it could possibly be head strength and conditioning coach Kevin Poppe, Marquee’s Scotty Changnon informed me that it was actually assistant hitting coach Juan “Pipi” Cabreja. And here I was hoping the dude was engaging in positive self-talk with his own alter-ego.

Whatever it takes to get him out of his own head, I guess. PCA indicated that he may have been pressing a little bit for stats, and that was evident to anyone who’s watched him over the last few weeks. After a stellar first half that saw him set a pace for at least a 40/40 season, generating MVP buzz and earning an All-Star start, his production has cooled dramatically. Heading into Monday’s win, PCA was slashing .203/.262/.337 with a 64 wRC+ and three homers over 196 appearances since the break.

And two of those homers came in the first five games of the second half, meaning he’d popped just one dinger in his last 176 trips to the plate. He was in an 0-for-17 slump before hitting a double at 107 mph that traveled 399 feet, more than enough for a homer with just a little different direction. The next time up, he absolutely stepped on a 96 mph dick-ball from former Cubs prospect Cam Sanders, sending it 418 feet at nearly 109 mph.

At the risk of assigning too much importance to two hits, they are both among his top 16 exit velocities out of 418 batted balls so far this season. Sometimes all it takes is a little reminder that, yes, you can actually do that thing you were so good at just a few days ago. Or a few weeks ago. Or months. I’d add years there, but you reach a certain point where Father Time has run you down and trampled you into bolivian [sic]. PCA is too young to feel old, so it could be as simple as redirecting his intent.

With 29 homers and 35 steals, one more homer will have him joining Sammy Sosa as the only members of the North Side chapter of the 30/30 club. There are only 48 total members, making the feat even rarer than I realized before writing this. PCA probably won’t opt for the same medalion that had teammates viewing Sosa askance in 1994 following that big breakout in his first full season with the Cubs, but I don’t think there’d be an issue with his swag if he did.

It’s wild to look back now and think that Sosa had four seasons between his 30/30 campaign and the first of three 60-homer seasons that diminished his early accomplishment by comparison. Now think about what it would mean if this season ends up being almost a footnote in the list of PCA’s future accomplishments. For now, though, he’ll just take the games and the numbers as they come.

“That’s what I’m working to do every day,” Crow-Armstrong said. “It’s just nice to find the barrel a couple times and walk away feeling like my at-bats were somewhat productive.”