Hip hip hooray, indeed. Pete Crow-Armstrong gave the Cubs the kind of game that changes the whole feel of a night — and maybe the shape of a stretch. Chicago beat St. Louis 6-1 behind a four-hit performance from PCA and a seven-inning answer from Ben Brown, finally pairing a live offense with firm run prevention.
Crow-Armstrong’s night had a little of everything. He doubled to set up the Cubs’ first run, scored twice, drove in two, and then detonated the loudest swing of the night in the eighth: a 444-foot solo homer to right on a 96.8 mph fastball, launched at 114.6 mph off the bat. That blast turned a 3-1 game into a cleaner cushion and gave the whole article its headline.
And the at-bats were the real story. He finished 4-for-5, which matters because this wasn’t a one-swing night. The homer grabs the attention, but the double in the fifth and the RBI single in the ninth told the fuller story: repeated quality contact, multiple ways to hurt the pitcher, and a game that kept building instead of flashing once and fading.
Ben Brown made sure the offensive work held. After the Cubs lost the previous night with their bats doing enough, Brown flipped the script with seven innings of one-run ball. He allowed only three hits, walked one, struck out six, and did it on just 82 pitches. It was exactly the stabilizing start Chicago needed.
The support around PCA mattered too. Nico Hoerner finished with two hits and an RBI. Michael Busch drove in two and scored the first run when PCA’s fifth-inning double set the inning in motion. Ian Happ went 2-for-5 and scored, Seiya Suzuki doubled and scored, and the Cubs turned a one-run deficit into a game they controlled from the middle innings on.
That’s what makes this win feel more complete than a one-player feature. PCA was the engine, Ben Brown was the anchor, and the rest of the lineup layered enough traffic and pressure to make St. Louis defend mistake-free baseball for too long. The Cardinals didn’t do that. The Cubs did.