Pete Crow-Armstrong dashed from third base, tapped the plate and then darted to the fans behind home, jumping on the railing against the netting to celebrate the Chicago Cubs’ walk-off, extra-innings, 2-1 win over the New York Mets at Wrigley Field.
“He’s a madman,” joked teammate Nico Hoerner, who drove in Crow-Armstrong.
Hoerner’s sacrifice fly in the 10th inning plated Crow-Armstrong and sparked the Cubs to their fifth-straight win — and extended the Mets’ skid to 11 games, their longest since 2004. The Cubs pulled off the series sweep with contributions from players on their roster who many fans wouldn’t have counted on in the spring.
Michael Conforto, a nonroster invitee in spring training who made the opening-day roster, tied the game by driving in Scott Kingery, another nonroster invitee who pinch ran for Ian Happ after the latter singled in the ninth. Conforto was pinch hitting against Mets closer Devin Williams and roped the first pitch he saw down the right field line to plate Kingery from first.
“You don’t want to wait around for (Williams) to set up the changeup,” Conforto said. “It’s almost like a lefty breaking ball at times. It’s a very, very good pitch. He hides it well, so I just wanted to be ready from the get-go.”
Williams forced the game to extra innings by striking out Crow-Armstrong to end the ninth. But having one of the game’s fastest players start at second base in the bottom of the 10th gave the Cubs an advantage, which increased after Caleb Thielbar pitched a scoreless top of the 10th.
Crow-Armstrong advanced to third base on a wild pitch from Craig Kimbrel. The former Cubs closer struck out Dansby Swanson, turning the lineup over to Hoerner, who entered the game hitting .325, including .360 with runners in scoring position.
“Whoever wants to finish the job there, let the top of the lineup go to work,” Crow-Armstrong said. “We’ve got the best bat-to-ball guy in baseball and my favorite player in baseball as our leadoff hitter. Getting on third base with one out and having Nico up, you’re pretty confident that you’re going to find home plate somehow, so just letting them go to work.”
The Mets could have walked Hoerner, setting up a double-play situation for Michael Busch, who was 0-for-4 with three groundouts, but they chose to pitch to him. Hoerner ended the game on the first pitch he saw.
“Yeah, it was definitely on my mind,” Hoerner said of a potential intentional walk. “I don’t know what goes into those opportunities, but glad I got the opportunity.”
It helped preserve a stout performance from a taxed pitching staff, which has 10 pitchers from their 40-man roster on the injured list. Right-hander Phil Maton is expected to face hitters at Wrigley Field on Tuesday, and opening-day starter Matthew Boyd is expected to return from the IL on Wednesday and start against Philadelphia.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell still has had to rely on a lot of arms he probably wasn’t expecting to count on so early in the year. Yet they delivered on Sunday.
Javier Assad bounced back after allowing nine runs on 11 hits against the Phillies in his previous outing last Monday by tossing 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball.
“Obviously, you watch video, you watch things you can change to execute pitches better, but the day after watching that, that stays in the past, and it’s a new start, and you keep going,” Assad said through an interpreter. “Thankfully, it was a good outing, executed pitches well and thanks to God, we got the win, which is what we wanted.”
Counsell turned to Jacob Webb, who had a 5.87 ERA in nine games this season, and the right-hander pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings. Rookie left-hander Riley Martin struck out two in the eighth inning in his sixth career major-league game, and right-hander Corbin Martin, who had only tossed two innings with Triple-A Iowa because of injury, pitched a scoreless ninth a day after joining the big-league team.
“Obviously, it’s not what we wanted, for them to be hurt, but for there to be people behind them that can do their job, it’s really good, honestly,” Assad said. “I think we’re a good organization where, sadly, they’re injured, but we know that the guys behind them or down in the minors can help the team.”
Major-league bullpens are notoriously volatile. The Cubs’ relief corps in the playoffs last season was vastly different than what they relied on in April.
“We pitched extremely well and proud of those guys and definitely some confidence-building appearances for those guys,” Counsell said.
But beyond the bullpen, the Cubs’ bench is proving to be a real weapon for Counsell. Saturday, the Cubs won when he brought on Carson Kelly to pinch hit for left-handed-hitting Moisés Ballesteros when the Mets brought in a left-hander from their bullpen. Kelly hit a three-run home run that proved to be the difference.
Sunday, Counsell used the DH spot for matchups, starting Ballesteros and having him face a left-hander in the fifth, but then turning to Matt Shaw to lead off the seventh against a right-hander. Counsell’s platooning kept Conforto on the bench and left him as an option in the ninth — and led to another win.
“We have a lineup and a group that has a really nice mix of skill sets, and (Counsell) does a great job of making the most of that,” Hoerner said. “We’ve got some guys that are going to have great years that have had slower starts and guys that are playing well right now that’ll have tough times, and that’s just the reality of a baseball season, and that’s the great thing of having a lineup full of really quality players.”
Andy Martinez is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.
