Former Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo said center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong’s hitless Wild Card Series does not erase an MVP-caliber regular season, though the spotlight on short postseason samples can feel harsh.
Crow-Armstrong went 0-for-7 with one walk, four strikeouts and one stolen base against the San Diego Padres. He finished the series with a .000 batting average and a .125 on-base percentage.
The Padres swept the best-of-three set, winning 8-0 and 4-1. Chicago scored one run across the two games and was eliminated after finishing the regular season 89-73.
Crow-Armstrong, 24, batted .280 with a .372 on-base percentage and .570 slugging percentage in 162 games. He hit 45 home runs, drove in 107 runs, scored 119 and stole 41 bases.
Those totals placed him in the 40-40 club, a group that includes only six other major leaguers in history. He also posted roughly 10 wins above replacement and is widely expected to win the National League MVP award.
He made his first All-Star team and played for the United States in the World Baseball Classic earlier in 2026. The playoff results stood in sharp contrast to that body of work.
Rizzo, speaking with Casino.ca, was asked whether the quiet series might push Crow-Armstrong in 2027.
“He knows what it takes to play at that level,” Rizzo said.
Rizzo added perspective on how quickly two games can dominate the narrative.
“October baseball is October baseball,” Rizzo said. “That’s the beauty of this wild card game: it’s must-see TV. The downside of it is if you have two bad games, it’s under a magnifying glass.”
Regular season slumps drew far less attention, Rizzo noted. Crow-Armstrong had multi-game stretches without hits during the 162-game schedule, yet those stretches did not define the year the way the Padres series has.
The Cubs reached the postseason for the second straight year.
“The Cubs now are going back-to-back years in the playoffs,” Rizzo said. “It’s an addicting feeling that you want to keep going on.”
Crow-Armstrong struck out four times in seven at-bats and did not record an extra-base hit. Alex Bregman, batting behind him, also went hitless in the series.
Chicago’s offense, among the higher-scoring units in the regular season, managed just one run. Padres pitching limited hard contact and kept Crow-Armstrong from driving the ball in the air.
One two-game sample does not rewrite a season that included 45 home runs and 41 steals. Rizzo said established players typically already understand the daily standard required at the major-league level.
Crow-Armstrong now has a direct view of how a Wild Card exit can overshadow months of production. The Cubs open the offseason with back-to-back playoff appearances and a young center fielder coming off one of the strongest individual seasons in franchise history.
