The Cubs and White Sox played a back-and-forth crosstown game, and Pete Crow-Armstrong decided to bookend it himself. He opened the scoring with a leadoff blast in the first inning, then ended the night with a walk-off homer, sending Chicago home happy and quietly checking off one of the sport's rarer milestones in the process.
Jomboy Media's clip captures Crow-Armstrong's walk-off homer and the Wrigley celebration that followed.
That walk-off wasn't just a good story, it was a stat-sheet earthquake. Codify Baseball broke down exactly how rare the night was: Crow-Armstrong became the 7th player in MLB history to hit a leadoff homer and a walk-off homer in the same game, and with those two swings he also locked in his second straight 30-homer, 30-steal season, only the 10th player ever to do it back-to-back.
Crow-Armstrong is 24 and only just wrapped his first full big-league season a year ago, when he joined Sammy Sosa as the only 30-30 players in Cubs history. Doing it again immediately, and doing it before his 30th birthday, puts him in company that includes names like Alfonso Soriano and Alex Rodriguez. Codify's rundown of players who reached 30-30 by their team's 126th game underlines just how fast he got there, with Shohei Ohtani's 2024 pace as the most recent comparison point.
30-30 by his team's 126th game: Ken Williams (1922) Bobby Bonds (1973) Eric Davis (1987) José Canseco (1988) Howard Johnson (1989) Alex Rodriguez (1998) Alfonso Soriano (2002) Carlos Beltrán (2004) Alfonso Soriano (2006) Shohei Ohtani (2024) Pete Crow-Armstrong (2026) 🔥🔥🔥
None of this is happening in a vacuum. Chicago locked Crow-Armstrong up with a six-year, $115 million extension that kicks in for 2027, betting that the glove-first, burst-of-power-and-speed profile scales as he matures. Through mid-August he's hitting.281 with 30 homers, 89 runs and 31 steals, elite defensive metrics in center field attached, while Ohtani is out-slugging him at the plate (.931 OPS to.905) and still doing his two-way act on the mound at an 8-2, 1.79 ERA clip.
That gap is exactly why the MVP argument has gotten heated. Jon Heyman called it one of the greatest MVP races ever after both players put up 4-hit, 2-homer nights on the same evening, with Crow-Armstrong's homers coming as a leadoff shot and a walk-off against a division rival. Not everyone is convinced the vibes should outweigh the two-way workload, though.
Can someone explain to me how PCA is even in the NL MVP race with Shohei Ohtani. Their batting stats are nearly identical. Oh, but Shohei Ohtani has 85.2 innings pitched with an 8-2 record and a 1.79 ERA. Just more impressive to me but PCA is having a heck of a season no doubt
The skepticism is fair. Ohtani doing 85-plus innings on the mound with an ERA under 2.00 while also raking is a genuinely absurd baseline to argue against. But that's the whole fun of this race: it's not close statistically, and it's not close in theater either. With about 40 games left, Crow-Armstrong has given voters a highlight reel that keeps writing itself, including another leadoff homer the very next night.
Codify's clip shows Crow-Armstrong going deep to lead off yet again, one night after his walk-off.
Whether that's enough to close the gap on Ohtani by October is anyone's guess. But between the contract, the defense, the stolen bases and now the back-to-back 30-30 seasons, Crow-Armstrong has made sure this MVP conversation doesn't end quietly.