Make New York Post a Preferred Source Pete Crow-Armstrong is a lock to win the NL MVP award. He became the seventh player in MLB history to record a 40/40 season and blew away the league with a 9.8 WAR (Baseball Reference.)
But he couldn’t come through when the Cubs needed him most.
The 24-year-old went 0-for-7 with four strikeouts in two games as the Cubs were blitzed by the scorching Padres in a wild-card sweep.
“We were challenged this year,” Crow-Armstrong said after Wednesday’s season-ending 4-1 loss in San Diego, per The Athletic, when asked about what the Cubs need to do to reach the next level. “This team showed a lot of heart and a lot of fight through all the challenges. But I would say, to start: I show up. I show up when it matters in these games. That would help us immediately. But that’s all I got right now.”
Crow-Armstrong went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts, a walk and a stolen base Tuesday in the Cubs’ 8-0 loss and went 0-for-4 on Wednesday.
He began Game 2 with a strikeout, unsuccessfully challenging a called strike three.
Two innings later, with two on and one out and the Padres up 2-0, Crow-Armstrong popped out before an Alex Bregman flyout ended the Cubs’ threat.
The center fielder’s disappointing postseason follows a 2025 playoff run in which he went 5-for-27 (.185) with zero extra-base hits and three RBIs in eight games.
“You can look at the scoreboard, you can look at the stat sheet, wherever you get your numbers from, and it is clear to see that I didn’t contribute,” Crow-Armstrong admitted.
Crow-Armstrong — the former Mets first-round pick who was traded in the infamous 2021 Javy Baez deal — signed a six-year, $115 million contract extension at the start of this season that kicks in next year and already seems like a massive bargain for the Cubs.
But if they’re going to be true World Series contenders, they’ll need more from their star in the playoffs.
