Baseball’s a team sport.
There are 26 guys on the roster and a lot of things that need to go right in order to ensure victory and a run to a championship.
But while it takes a lot of contributors to win a World Series, having the game’s best player – in the Cubs’ case, MVP favorite Pete Crow-Armstrong – among them ain’t too shabby.
“He affects the game in every aspect,” designated hitter Michael Conforto said of his teammate last week. “Every time he comes up to the plate, he can change the score. If they don’t want to pitch to him, a walk is, a lot of times, going to be a double [because of his base-stealing ability]. He’s going to be on second base. And if they hit the ball anywhere in the middle of the field in the air, odds are he’s going to catch it.
“He’s really, in a big way, brought us to this point. And we’ve done a lot of great things to cover everything else, but Pete’s been a huge reason we’re in the position that we’re in.”
With six games remaining on the regular-season schedule, Crow-Armstrong and the Cubs have a decisive week ahead.
The 24-year-old center fielder is two stolen bases away from the seventh 40-homer, 40-steal season in baseball history. It would be the top line of an MVP resume already strong enough to earn him the award; he’s been far ahead in that race, even of Dodgers two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, for months.
But Crow-Armstrong has made it clear that the individual accomplishments aren’t of much concern to him, especially compared to what it means for his team to achieve the goal it’s harbored since the spring.
Just one win in their final half dozen games will secure the Cubs’ place in the postseason. Even if they end up on the wrong end of sweeps against the Marlins and Red Sox, though, just one loss by the Diamondbacks will do the trick.
But where the Cubs play their opening-round playoff series remains very much in question.
They’re tied with the Padres for the NL’s No. 1 wild-card spot and just a game ahead of the Phillies. That the Cubs own the tiebreaker over both teams is helpful in landing a best-of-three wild-card series at Wrigley Field.
But even scoreboard-watching fans figure to be locked into what magic Crow-Armstrong can cook up as the regular season comes to a close and the Cubs look to advance deep into October.
A 40-40 season would be something wildly rare in baseball history, though it would be the third in the last four years after Braves star Ronald Acuna Jr. went 41-73 in 2023 and Ohtani went 54-59 in 2024.
But even with that recency, it would electrify the North Side, something Crow-Armstrong has made a habit of as he’s delivered MVP moments all season long.
“It is really similar to what I saw last year,” said Conforto, who was Ohtani’s Dodgers teammate in 2025. “You see a guy go out there and do things that no one else can do. And he does it different than Shohei does it. But it’s the same thing. He moves differently. He has different tools than everyone else.
“You just kind of enjoy sitting back and watching history being made.”
But that’s this week.
Come next Tuesday, when the wild-card round gets underway, a 40-40 season won’t mean as much to Crow-Armstrong if he can’t help the Cubs to the most important wins of their season.
Fortunately for the Cubs, he hasn’t slowed down, and that means they could be in for a full October’s worth of Crow-Armstrong highlights – with, they hope, a trophy presentation at month’s end.
“You look at the great teams in our sport – and I guess in sports, in general – there usually is a real superstar talent at the heart of it,” second baseman Nico Hoerner said. “I don’t think we need him to be superhuman in order to be successful, but it sure helps when he is.
“He’s had many games this year where he’s kind of won games single-handedly. … It’s hard to picture where we’d be this year without him.”