CHICAGO — Three stolen bases separate Pete Crow-Armstrong from one of baseball’s most exclusive clubs. After Monday night, the only question at Wrigley Field is whether the 24-year-old center fielder can reach it before the schedule runs out.
Crow-Armstrong went 4-for-5 with his 42nd home run, four RBIs, and his 37th stolen base as the Chicago Cubs defeated the Atlanta Braves 7–3. The victory moved Chicago a half-game ahead of the idle Philadelphia Phillies for the National League’s top wild-card position, with the San Diego Padres two games behind in third.
It was the kind of performance that can change how an entire baseball season is remembered.
The decisive blow came in the sixth inning. Crow-Armstrong hit a two-run shot to right-center off Atlanta reliever AJ Smith-Shawver, matching Hall of Famer Billy Williams’ franchise record from 1970 for home runs by a left-handed hitter. It carried in the kind of silence that precedes a crowd roar rather than follows it, and the Braves never found the equilibrium that pitch disturbed.
He finished with four hits, drove in four runs to push his season RBI total to 102 (the first time in his career he has crossed that threshold), and added his 37th stolen base for good measure. It was the kind of complete performance that does not happen by accident in September, when the baseball roster is tired, the schedule is relentless, and every plate appearance is part of a playoff argument.
David Priestly kept the evening together from the mound. The right-hander allowed one earned run over six innings on five hits, striking out seven Braves batters without issuing a walk. He has now made seven starts this season pitching at least six innings with two or fewer earned runs. Manager Craig Counsell credited Priestly’s ability to pitch to contact when his slider was not breaking sharply, a quality he described as “what separates guys who win starts from guys who survive them.”
The 40-40 context frames everything else about this baseball season. Only six players in major league history have hit 40 home runs and stolen 40 bases in the same season: Jose Canseco in 1988, Barry Bonds in 1996, Alex Rodriguez in 1998, Alfonso Soriano in 2006, Ronald Acuña Jr. in 2023 and Shohei Ohtani in 2023. Crow-Armstrong, at 24 years old, needs three more steals in 15 remaining games. The math is achievable. Baseball math has a way of becoming complicated when the finish line is visible.
He is also writing sections of Cubs franchise history that had not been updated in decades. The Williams record he matched Monday had stood for 56 years. As Eastern Herald reported last week, Crow-Armstrong was already within five stolen bases of the 40-40 threshold, a milestone most analysts assumed would require the full remaining schedule to reach. He has since trimmed that deficit in half.
The absence of Shohei Ohtani from the NL Most Valuable Player conversation has shifted the baseball award calculus in ways that benefit Crow-Armstrong directly. Ohtani has been on the injured list since early July with a biceps injury. NBC Sports described Crow-Armstrong as a “one-man wrecking crew” after Monday’s performance, and the characterization fits the shape of what he has built this year. Passing 100 RBI for the first time in his career, in the same baseball season he is chasing the 40-40 club, is a combination that makes MVP arguments difficult to rebut.
The wild-card position reflects a second half that bears no resemblance to the first. Chicago sat four games out of a playoff spot on July 4. Bleacher Report tracked Monday’s game as Crow-Armstrong’s third four-hit performance of September, a pace that has coincided with the Cubs taking series from opponents they were not projected to beat. As Eastern Herald reported Monday, the Dodgers clinched the NL West that same night, leaving a three-team baseball wild-card battle — Chicago, Philadelphia and San Diego — as the most volatile portion of the postseason picture with 15 games remaining.
What Chicago cannot answer yet is whether three stolen bases arrive in these final 15 games, and whether the Cubs hold the position they claimed Monday. The San Diego Padres are close enough that one losing streak ends the conversation. Crow-Armstrong’s pace makes both outcomes plausible. His 4-for-5 performance against the Braves demonstrated what he is capable of when the conditions converge. The 40-40 club does not ask for demonstrations. It asks for completion.
Chicago delivered a 7-3 answer Monday. The baseball arithmetic that follows will not come as easily.
