The Chicago Cubs are hoping a short break benefits center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong at the plate.<\/p>\n
Crow-Armstrong was not in the lineup Wednesday for a second consecutive game, part of manager Craig Counsell\u2019s plan to give him a three-day reset, paired with the Cubs\u2019 day off Thursday.\u00a0Crow-Armstrong didn\u2019t do any of his typical pregame hitting Tuesday in an effort to have him take a step back amid his prolonged slump. He was expected to go through his normal routine Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust to get him a physical and mental break,\u201d Counsell explained. \u201cAnd then go into the last essentially 3\u00bd weeks of the season hopefully a little bit refreshed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The timing comes as the Cubs make a push to close the gap between their second-place standing in the National League Central and the first-place Milwaukee Brewers, who hold a six-game advantage. The Cubs conversely are trying to build on their four-game lead for the top NL wild-card spot over the San Diego Padres. Counsell said it\u2019s not a black-and-white decision when weighing all of those factors in tandem with giving a struggling key player a few days off.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do what\u2019s best for the player first, always do what\u2019s best for the player and then you have other considerations,\u201d Counsell said. \u201cBut you learn lessons doing this that it\u2019s one game and the benefit outweighs it sometimes, as much as you want your best players out there. So, there\u2019s been examples that I\u2019ve learned from in the past that you do what\u2019s right for the player and you\u2019re not making a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crow-Armstrong has been in an offensive funk since the beginning of August. Over the last four weeks, the 23-year-old has recorded a .163 average, .217 on-base percentage and .231 slugging percentage with four doubles, one home run and five RBIs. The high strikeout rate is naturally a part of his game, but the lack of slug and missing on pitches he should be doing damage on has hindered Crow-Armstrong\u2019s production recently. In the first three-plus months of the season, he posted a .272\/.309\/.559 slash line with 30 doubles, four triples, 27 home runs and 78 RBIs in a 106-game span.<\/p>\n
The Cubs saw a short break help Kyle Tucker when he sat for three games two weeks ago. After an 0-fer in his first game back, Tucker is hitting .400 since then with four doubles, four home runs, 11 RBIs and a .489 OBP in his last 11 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Pete wanted to play, but I thought it was the best idea,\u201d Counsell said. \u201cI looked at this really, frankly, early in the road trip and thinking where could we get Pete a break? And as the road trip kind of went on, it became obvious to me that we should use this opportunity to get him a little break.\u201d<\/p>\n
As expected, Tucker was not in Wednesday\u2019s lineup, either, after departing Tuesday midgame<\/a> with left calf tightness. Counsell stated postgame Tucker wouldn\u2019t play in the finale, and coupled with Thursday\u2019s off day, give him extended rest before reassessing the right fielder\u2019s availability Friday. Counsell didn\u2019t have any further updates Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re just going to give him the day,\u201d Counsell said of Tucker. \u201cWe\u2019ve got 48 hours, the way I see it, from today through tomorrow, so he\u2019ll just get treatment and we\u2019ll check on him and see how he\u2019s doing Friday morning.\u201d<\/p>\n The Cubs have been able to stay healthy with their everyday position players, which has played a big role in the team\u2019s success. With 23 games left in the regular season entering Wednesday, only two Cubs hitters have spent time on the injured list: left fielder Ian Happ, who missed 10 games in May because of his oblique, and catcher Miguel Amaya, who missed 3\u00bd months with an oblique strain and is currently on the IL with a left ankle sprain<\/a>.<\/p>\n Counsell pointed to Happ and shortstop Dansby Swanson as great examples of being physically available. In the previous three years, Happ averaged 154 games per season while Swanson averaged 148 the last two following a three-year stretch in Atlanta in which he played in every game between 2020-22.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really impressive at a pretty physically demanding position and so one of Dansby\u2019s great traits, and sometimes we don\u2019t get excited enough about this, is his availability every single day and what that does for your roster and your defense and just your everyday, it\u2019s really important,\u201d Counsell said. \u201cAnd I think we\u2019ve got a bunch of guys that have played a lot of games this year, and it\u2019s made us a better team.\u201d<\/p>\n Originally Published: September 3, 2025 at 7:32 PM CDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Cubs are hoping a short break benefits center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong at the plate. Crow-Armstrong was…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":199020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,110315,1816,5386,1818,5605,4247,1277],"class_list":{"0":"post-199019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-chris-boghossian","10":"tag-craig-counsell","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois","13":"tag-kyle-tucker","14":"tag-milwaukee-brewers","15":"tag-pete-crow-armstrong"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115144958142260465","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/199020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}