Part of Pete Crow-Armstrong’s explosion onto baseball’s national stage has been his defense and his penchant for highlight-reel plays in center field.
But he might want to keep Saturday off his MVP pitch.
Yes, Crow-Armstrong launched his 21st home run, one of five homers the Cubs hit in a 10-7 win over the Mariners. But two fly balls to center dropped past his glove as both teams battled the latest curveball thrown by the conditions at Wrigley Field.
It was a home-run heaven for hitters, with extreme heat and winds howling out to center. But the 94-degree first-pitch temperature and 20-mile-an-hour first-pitch winds wreaked havoc on defenders, with fly balls to the outfield flummoxing even strong glove men like Crow-Armstrong and left fielder Ian Happ.
“Everything in your brain is telling you, from all the fly balls you’ve had in the past, where that ball’s going to land. And so to recalibrate can be challenging,” Happ said. “You’re trying to follow that thing. The sun was in a bad spot for [Crow-Armstrong] there in the first couple innings. Those balls were right in the middle of it, wind and sun.
“You’ve got to do a little bit of recalibration on a day like today, and we’ll be better for it next time.”
Things even got dangerous, with home-plate umpire Chad Whitson and Mariners reliever Trent Thornton removed from the game amid the heat.
“We talk a lot about Wrigley Field and how the weather affects baseball here more than any other place. We got the massive extreme to the other side today,” manager Craig Counsell said. “And it made it feel like a different game, almost. It was baseball, but it was different.
“It was incredibly difficult to just catch a fly ball. … [These are] conditions we just don’t play in. And you see what it does to the best players in the world.”
While it might not have been fun to play in, the Cubs benefitted. Happ homered twice and was joined by Crow-Armstrong, right fielder Kyle Tucker and first baseman Michael Busch in the home-run department.
“We play in so many different conditions, from freezing cold and the wind blowing in to a day like today, where it’s scorching and the wind’s blowing out,” Happ said. “We’ve just got to embrace it.”
Bullpen shuffle
The Cubs designated lefty reliever Genesis Cabrera for assignment Saturday, bringing righty Nate Pearson up from Triple-A Iowa.
Cabrera’s numbers were ugly; he had an 8.68 ERA in nine appearances. Pearson, meanwhile, owned a 2.22 ERA in 19 games with Iowa, a drastic difference from the 10.38 number he put up in 10 outings for the big league team earlier this season.
“Nate’s been throwing the ball well,” Counsell said. “He struggled a little bit early in Triple-A, when he was sent down, and really worked on trying to get back to a good place. We feel like he’s made some progress there.”
Hodge’s latest
Righty reliever Porter Hodge allowed seven runs, six of them earned, and committed an error in his latest rehab outing with the I-Cubs on Friday night.
“It wasn’t as bad as it looked,” Counsell said, “but obviously, it wasn’t a good outing.”
Hodge, on the mend from a hip impingement that extended an IL stay that began with a strained oblique, will make another rehab appearance with Iowa.
