Pete Crow-Armstrong takes off again, launching another leadoff homer for the Cubs

Pete Crow-Armstrong picked up exactly where he left off, launching a leadoff home run Sunday night at Wrigley Field against the Cincinnati Reds. Coming off a standout performance one day earlier that included the first three-homer game of his career, Crow-Armstrong again made an immediate statement, starting the game by taking Reds starter Chase Burns deep.

The home run was Crow-Armstrong’s 37th of the season, extending an unusually productive stretch that has moved him into the center of the Cubs’ offensive identity. Just as important, it added to a specific skill that has become one of his most consistent calling cards. With the blast, he recorded his ninth leadoff home run of the season.

That total matters in the context of franchise history. Crow-Armstrong’s nine leadoff homers in one season put him second in Cubs history for a single year, trailing only Alfonso Soriano’s club record 12 leadoff home runs from 2007. It is rare for any player to build a season-long pattern of striking first, particularly with a team facing the constant adjustments that follow a power run through the lineup.

Facing Burns, a veteran presence on Cincinnati’s pitching staff, Crow-Armstrong did what the Cubs likely drew up and what hitters often chase but struggle to reproduce night after night. He did not merely hit a home run in general play, he began the game with authority, shaping the start of the contest and forcing the Reds to respond to immediate damage before they could settle into their plan.

Crow-Armstrong’s Sunday night homer also underlined how his power has started to show up in the earliest moments of games. Leadoff home runs do more than pad totals. They remove the need for a team to “earn” an early run, and they can change how opposing pitchers approach the plate with their bullpen and pitch counts in mind, even before the first few batters have taken their swings.

The Cubs will want that kind of early pressure to continue because it gives them a repeatable offensive blueprint. When the leadoff hitter is consistently producing over the fences, the entire order can play with less friction, particularly in innings where the middle of the lineup might otherwise need to work through a scoreless start.

For the Reds, the matchup served as another reminder that pitching execution is harder when an opponent’s first swing comes with power. Even when a pitcher is capable of generating results across multiple outings, a game can pivot quickly once a hitter with this kind of current form takes an at-bat and turns it into a homer from the first position in the batting order.

Over the coming games, the focus will likely remain on whether Crow-Armstrong can keep extending the pace of his leadoff production. With his season total now sitting just behind the franchise benchmark set by Soriano, each next start at Wrigley and each early at-bat elsewhere becomes more than a statistic. It becomes a live piece of Cubs history in progress and a clear indicator of whether the streak can carry him further than the Cubs have seen in recent memory.