Pete Crow-Armstrong has monster night vs. Pirates

Crow-Armstrong’s homer came in the third inning off an ineffective Jake Irvin, and got the Cubs to within a run at 3-2. The MVP candidate has gone deep 27 times in 2026 while driving in 72 runs. After showing the ability to be a star in 2025, the man they call PCA has put it all together to become one of the best fantasy options in the sport.

Crow-Armstrong is back patrolling center field after spending a pair of games at DH. The 24-year-old rising superstar has emerged as one of the NL MVP Award frontrunners this season, hitting .286/.388/.544 with 26 homers and 30 steals in 527 plate appearances. His durability and counting stats volume are the biggest reasons why he’s delivered first-round fantasy value this season.

Crow-Armstrong and Shohei Ohtani, the NL MVP front-runners at the moment, had nearly identical games from the DH spot today; both went 3-for-5 with leadoff homers in the first and a two-run homers later on. They were even the 25th and 26th homers of the season for both. The difference, though, was that PCA’s third hit was an RBI double, whereas Othani’s was an RBI-less single. Crow-Armstrong is now hitting .288/.386/.552, putting him in fourth place in the majors in OPS. He has three two-homer games this season and nine for his career.

Crow-Armstrong came to the plate in the 10th inning with this game still tied at 0-0 and launched a 424 foot, 109 mph home run. He celebrated like he’d just won them the game and for a moment it felt like they had, until the Cardinals rallied for three runs of their own in the bottom of the inning. Nevertheless, Crow-Armstrong is putting together a MVP-worthy campaign with 24 home runs, 26 stolen bases, and a .284/.382/.538 slash line on the season.

PCA doubled in the third inning, but made his biggest impact in the sixth when he drew the Cubs even with the Pirates after blasting a solo homer off starter Jared Jones to tie the game at 1-1. It was the 22nd homer of the season for Crow-Armstrong, who homered for the first time since his two-homer night on July 8th. With one week left to go in July, Crow-Armstrong is slashing a solid .288/.447/.593 with 10 RBI and nine extra-base hits.

It’s the fourth time in his career that Crow-Armstrong has reached base safely, with three of those coming within the last two months. He’d entered the night in a little 2-for-26 slump, but with the way his plate discipline has improved, it just doesn’t seem at all likely that he’ll suffer a second-half swoon to resemble last year’s. He’s at .285/.384/.521 for the season, and he’s walked 52 times in 101 games this year after doing so just 29 times in 157 games last season.

Michael Conforto, Carson Kelly and Seiya Suzuki joined Crow-Armstrong in homering for the Cubs. Crow-Armstrong’s first was just 94.2 mph off the bat, but it traveled 350 feet anyway. The second was hit 106.7 mph and was projected at 419 feet. Crow-Armstrong also walked and scored a third run in the contest. He’s the first player to go 20/20 this year, having totaled 21 homers and 23 steals. Last year, he finished the first half with 25 homers and 27 steals, though he went on to add on just six homers and eight steals after the break. He’ll probably slow down some this year, too, but the improvement in his plate discipline makes it unlikely that he’ll again experience such a dramatic decline.

Chicago’s 23 runs are the most they’ve scored in a game since 1995, and their eight homers tied a franchise record. PCA has been on an absolute heater lately, and he finished June with a .381/.468/.781 triple slash line before homering on the first day of July. The former Mets prospect has more than doubled his walk rate from last season, and he’s now up to 19 homers and 21 stolen bases on the year. Crow-Armstrong isn’t running quite as aggressively as he did in 2025, but all the extra times on base could lead to him beating the 35 thefts he accumulated last season.

Crow-Armstrong has vowed to participate at some point in his career, but it won’t be during this year’s Midsummer Classic. The 24-year-old fantasy force has been one of the hottest hitters in baseball since the start of June, crushing 10 homers across 25 contests during that span.

With the pair of steals, PCA is now up to 20 on the season. That puts him just under a 40 stolen-base pace, and the way he’s gotten on base — he drew three walks Sunday — suggests that he’s going to have a chance to reach that figure in 2026.