What’s led to Pete Crow-Armstrong’s rough start to August?
ST LOUIS — Pete Crow-Armstrong disagreed that his recent struggles have only been a week long. The MVP candidate has felt he’s not performing at his best for a little while now.
“There’s nothing glaring,” Crow-Armstrong said when asked if he’s identified anything off with his swing or approach. “On the inside, I think it’s been harder for a little longer than just a week. But that’s also because of my standards and expectations. I’m not chasing all that much. It’s just results-based. It’s a result-oriented game, obviously.”
The numbers don’t support Crow-Armstrong’s harsh self-criticism. From the All-Star break through the end of July, a span of 46 plate appearances, Crow-Armstrong had a 188 wRC+ with nine doubles and two home runs. July was actually his best month at a 170 wRC+. So Crow-Armstrong is just being hard on himself. His struggles started in August, and we’re just a little over a week into the month. He has just three hits, just one for extra bases, and no walks in these nine games.
Conventional wisdom would suggest Crow-Armstrong is chasing. It’s what he does. He’s a swinger and can look bad on pitches out of the zone, but he also crushes them. However, that has just not been the case.
The numbers show that as Crow-Armstrong’s chase has gone down recently — to his best rate of the season, in fact — his overall production has tumbled as well. It sounds a little basic, but it appears Crow-Armstrong is just missing his pitch.
“That’s kind of what he’s going through right now,” hitting coach Dustin Kelly said. “There’s not a ton of stuff with the swing that’s different; the tempo looks really good. Sometimes you go through spells where you just don’t get it on the barrel like you want to and it ends up on the ground.”
PCA's wOBA on pitches in “heart” of zone
Mar/April .375
May .549
June .288
July .540
August .078
The above shows Crow-Armstrong’s wOBA by month against pitches that Statcast defines as the “heart” of the zone. The league average for wOBA is .314 this season (it’s usually close to the league average for OBP, which is .316 this season). Crow-Armstrong had a below-average month on those pitches in June, and through nine games in August has been abysmal.
A perfect example of this was in the first inning of Sunday’s loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. With two men on, Crow-Armstrong worked a 3-0 count. He then saw a 92.6 mph heater down the heart of the zone. Crow-Armstrong had a green light, took a rip and softly grounded out to first base.
“Nothing is really wrong,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I just suck at hitting baseballs sometimes right now. That’s OK. It doesn’t feel OK when I’m on the field and want to help my team win. You’d like to be the kick-starter or game-changer.”
Crow-Armstrong’s hard contact had been trending up, but that’s started to dip of late as well. Meanwhile, his groundball rate has trended up. His hottest stretches are when he’s pulling the ball hard and in the air. That can’t be forced, though.
“The stretch that he was on was almost unconscious at times,” Kelly said. “The way he hits the ball so hard and he’s in the air so much, good results happen when you do that. Even when you’re off the barrel. He’s been on the ground a little bit more recently. Still hitting the ball hard.”
Crow-Armstrong has been putting in the work. He’s trying to make sure his swing is right and that he doesn’t overthink his bad days. The opposition is also doing work. Despite July being the month with the fewest games, it was the month with his most plate appearances against lefties. So far this month, pitchers are really upping their offspeed usage against Crow-Armstrong. Kelly pointed out that in general, pitchers are attacking him slightly differently, especially early in counts.
“Early on, people were still trying to get him to chase below the zone and they’d miss up,” Kelly said. “Now they’re trying to miss away and then come in late and try to elevate. They’re moving around the zone a little bit more and not just trying to get him to chase.”
Crow-Armstrong has to adjust. He can’t let a bad week turn into a bad month. He’s incredibly hard on himself and sets a standard where he doesn’t even feel like what he’s done so far this season is good enough. Whether he can meet the future expectations he’s set for himself with these incredible results is the question he must answer.
“There’s definitely a lot that we’ve looked at swing-wise,” Crow-Armstrong said. “We’ve gotten back to really good positions. I think it’s just one of those situations where one barrel, one blooper — if I get that one knock, then I get that knock. If not, then I just gotta go out and play center field.”
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