MIAMI – Pete Crow-Armstrong has said it before this season.
He can’t be a “one-man wrecking crew.”
He’s had a ridiculous enough season that it sometimes seems like he’s carrying the Cubs by himself, but you don’t get to where this team is without firing on a lot more cylinders. That’s how the Cubs will have to do it to win in the postseason.
Exhibit A? Sunday’s 10-3 loss to the Marlins.
Crow-Armstrong carved out even more space in the franchise record books, becoming the 10th Cub ever to hit 40 homers in a season. But righty starter Clay Holmes was atypically ineffective, walking batters, allowing a rare home run and getting tagged for a career-worst eight runs.
It was a poor performance that Cubs fans haven’t seen from Holmes since he joined the team in a deadline deal at the beginning of last month. In fact, when Holmes gave up a couple runs in the second inning Sunday, it was more than he’d allowed in his previous four starts combined.
But those early tallies weren’t the worst of it, and the floodgates opened in a five-run fifth that saw the ground-ball specialist Holmes walk a pair, hit a batter and give up three hits, failing to finish the frame.
“I wasn’t very good with runners on base,” Holmes said after the game. “I can’t beat myself. With runners on, I need to get in the zone more and make some better pitchers.
“Pitches felt good, it’s just a matter of some execution.”
For the time being, this is nothing more than a “once in a blue moon” clunker for a guy who’s looked like a Game 1 playoff starter in his time as a North Sider.
But the Cubs saw how sideways things can go when something’s not going right.
Fortunately for them, they have a one-of-a-kind difference-maker in Crow-Armstrong, and it briefly looked like another MVP moment for the All-Star center fielder when he crushed a game-tying homer in the top of the fifth inning for his 40th of the season.
“It’s a big, round number. It is a symbolic number. Forty home runs, it’s a hard number to get to, and not many guys ever get to it in their career,” manager Craig Counsell said. “The season’s not over. He’s got more to add to the number.”
Crow-Armstrong is the first Cubs hitter to smack 40 in a single campaign since Derrek Lee hit 46 in 2005.
Coincidentally, Sunday was Lee’s birthday.
Lee was a part of the Marlins team that sent the Cubs packing in the 2003 playoffs, en route to a World Series win. The Cubs are trying to make it to the end of October this year, and they’ll need more than just Crow-Armstrong bombs to do it.
Most of the season, that’s what they’ve got, waking up Sunday with the best offense in baseball and the best defense in baseball, plus enough starting-pitching performances to make achieving their sky-high goals look possible.
But there’s not a lot of wiggle room when the games mean their most.
Add him to the list
Crow-Armstrong’s 40-homer season is the 20th in franchise history, and the 24-year-old is now in some elite company.
Other Cubs to smack 40?
– Sammy Sosa (seven times)
– Ernie Banks (five times)
– Andre Dawson
– Dave Kingman
– Derrek Lee
– Hank Sauer
– Ryne Sandberg
– Billy Williams
– Hack Wilson
Knee sidelines Happ
Left fielder Ian Happ was scratched from the starting lineup Sunday with left knee discomfort after he “banged” it while sliding into an out at third base in Saturday’s game.