How small details laid the groundwork for Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong's Team USA heroics

MESA, Ariz. — In the glimpses of the television that Cubs catcher Carson Kelly caught in between wrestling with his two young children Tuesday evening, he witnessed his teammate Pete Crow-Armstrong step into the batter’s box for Team USA and deliver a game-changing home run.

Then he did it again.

“He just seemed in control,” Kelly told the Sun-Times on Wednesday. “The pace that he was getting into the box, walking up to the plate, the takes he had, it just seemed like he was in control of himself. I'm a believer in, you’ve got to be in control of yourself and the pace of it before you can control what you're doing in the box [and] the result of it.”

Crow-Armstrong was the driving force behind Team USA’s comeback attempt against Italy in World Baseball Classic pool play Tuesday.

His three-run homer in the seventh inning breathed life back into a United States dream team that had been improbably trailing 8-1. Then in the ninth, he hit a solo shot to cut the deficit to two runs and keep the hope alive. Both blasts came in two-strike counts.

Crow-Armstrong’s heroics, however, weren’t quite enough to pull Team USA out of the hole it had dug. And with the loss, they left their fate up to the game Wednesday between Italy and Mexico, who planned to start Cubs right-hander Javier Assad in the pivotal match.

“It was a whole rabbit hole,” Cubs second baseman said Wednesday morning of the WBC tiebreakers. “I didn't know all the details of the news. But I've definitely been watching all of it, so I'll be watching again tonight.”

Regardless of the quarterfinal clinching scenarios, pool play showed a version of Crow-Armstrong resembling the player who was in the MVP conversation the first half of last season.

“It's just exciting for him. He almost had four home runs,” Hoerner said, also noting Crow-Armstrong’s 395-foot flyout to center field and a long foul ball. “He just looked confident and comfortable. And it's got to feel amazing to do that while sharing a locker room with those kinds of players as a younger player himself. And hopefully they advance and he's able to do more amazing things in the tournament.”

Crow-Armstrong’s offensive production in the second half of 2025 took a dive, still resulting in a 31-home run, 35-steal season. But he went into the offseason motivated to improve his consistency.

“When the setup was out of whack, and I wasn't really getting in the box the same way and everything, that's when the swing kind of went to crap,” Crow-Armstrong said at the beginning of camp, “and that’s when the mechanical stuff started playing a bigger role in the lack of success.”

One of Crow-Armstrong’s focuses this offseason was refining his setup and repeating his pre-pitch routine. That work was evident in his spring training at-bats. He’d step in the exact same way every pitch: right fit, left foot, three bat taps on his back shoulder.

The familiar routine played into the control that Kelly observed.

“That's a controllable,” Kelly said. “And in a game where there are so many things that are uncontrollable, to have that be your foundation is something that you can continue to rely on, good or bad.”

Then came the swing, the loud contact, the bat flip and the eruption of cheers.

“Moments like that continue to build your like reservoir of confidence,” manager Craig Counsell said. “And that's always important, for sure. The more you have that reservoir built up, so to speak, when inevitably struggles happen and failure happens, that's when you call on that.”