Pete Crow-Armstrong celebrates after crushing a 444-foot home run while fans taunted him in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Scott Kane)
About ten days ago this contributor wrote that Pete Crow-Armstrong needed a day off to take a breath, clear his head, and get back on course.
Well, Craig Counsell isn’t considered one of the best managers in baseball — one who has the richest contract amongst all managers (five years, $40 million) — for nothing. Rather than listening to the musing of an ink-stained wretch, he wrote out his lineup card the next day with PCA in the lead-off spot, and all he did was walk twice and hit a line-drive home run.
In fact, since that article published, Crow-Armstrong has been in the lineup every day, has slashed .297/.426/.541, with two home runs and seven walks. The second of those two big flies came Saturday night in St. Lous. With the rival crowd chanting “overrated” each time Crow-Armstrong stepped into the batter’s box, PCA smashed a 444-foot no-doubter into the “no tarps” section of Busch Stadium (115-mph off the bat), silencing his doubters. That was his third hit of the night, and he collected a single an inning later to complete his fourth career four-hit game.
Saturday’s performance could have been predicted. When Crow-Armstrong was in Triple-A as a highly touted prospect, veteran Wily Peralta thought he would show the kid how the game is played. The pitcher threw one pitch behind Crow-Armstrong and the another over his head. After much yelling (and a manager ejection) and warnings for both teams, Peralta fired a fastball and PCA crushed a massive home run over the right field wall, and then executed a perfect bat flip, to boot. So, with Cardinal fans harassing him, with the media coming down on him, with him dealing with his first taste of national adversity, PCA relied on his incredible talent to do the talking.
