MIAMI — Cubs rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong’s helmet flew off as he dashed toward third, picking up third-base coach Willie Harris, who was waving him home.
His line drive had flown past Marlins right fielder Jesus Sanchez, hit the wall on a hop and bounced the opposite way to give the speedy Crow-Armstrong extra time. But it was going to be close.
Crow-Armstrong launched himself headfirst, past catcher Nick Forte’s swinging tag, and swept his left hand across the plate.
From the top step of the dugout entrance, manager Craig Counsell threw up his hands. Safe.
“It was one of those plays where you’re hoping Willie sent him no matter what, almost,” Counsell said after the Cubs’ 6-3 victory Friday against the Marlins. “It felt like it was a play everybody wanted to see happen in the stadium. And they completed the relay really well and made it close. But it was fun to watch.”
Crow-Armstrong popped up and shouted, every muscle in his arms flexed, hands balled into fists. He’d just tied the score on an inside-the-park home run in the third inning. To pull it off, he’d run from home to home in 14.1 seconds, the fastest time in the majors this season.
The back-and-forth nature of the game might have made it a little too close for comfort. Later in the third inning, Ian Happ hit a two-run homer to put the Cubs up 3-1. Then the Marlins scored again on Jonah Bride’s RBI single in the third inning and tied it in the fifth when reliever Tyson Miller took over for starter Kyle Hendricks and allowed back-to-back walks to push across a run.
Miller regained his control, and the bullpen shut down the Marlins the rest of the way. The Cubs retook the lead on Isaac Paredes’ RBI double in the eighth inning.
It was the first game of a nine-game trip against struggling teams. The Marlins (46-82) and the Nationals (58-71) bookend the trip and sit at the bottom of the National League East. The Cubs play the Pirates (61-67), last place in the NL Central, in between.
Even Counsell, who prefers to comment on the game at hand instead of making statements about portions of the schedule, didn’t shy away from the trip’s importance.
“We’ve got to play well enough to keep ourselves in this, yes,” Counsell said before the game. “And we still don’t have margin for error. So a poor trip certainly would make this very difficult.”
For a second consecutive night, the bottom of the order produced a momentum-swinging hit. Crow-Armstrong and Miguel Amaya, who hit a grand slam in the Cubs’ 10-2 victory Thursday against the Tigers and a two-run homer for insurance in the ninth inning Friday, have been in a groove at the plate, lengthening the lineup.
Unlike Amaya, who eliminated his stride to unlock his best swing, Crow-Armstrong added a leg kick.
He started tinkering with it in St. Louis last month before the All-Star break, “searching for something,” he said. And then a couple of weeks later at Kansas City, he committed.
“That’s helped him stay back,” hitting coach Dustin Kelly said, adding that they had used a similar drill with Crow-Armstrong to pull out that feeling. “He’s not lunging at the ball or jumping at the ball. He’s letting the ball get to him a little bit more.”
By thinking about keeping his weight back, Crow-Armstrong has found he ends up centered. And the adjustment, in turn, has helped feed into his improved plate discipline.
That was clear on his inside-the-park home-run swing. With the higher stride, he started his swing earlier. He recognized a first-pitch fastball and got his barrel to it. Then he was off to the races.
“Willie and I have talked about that ball a fair amount — especially at Wrigley if that same opportunity presents itself,” Crow-Armstrong said. “I think Willie and I were on the same page in the jump there.”
He wasn’t stopping.