Latest / North Side Territory: A Chicago Cubs Podcast / With the Cubs in a funk, Pete Crow-Armstrong’s season is spiraling

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With the Cubs in a funk, Pete Crow-Armstrong’s season is spiraling · North Side Territory: A Chicago Cubs Podcast

0:06
Speaker 1: Welcome into Northside Territory. Foul Territory Networks Cubs Podcast. I'm
0:10
Speaker 1: Sahadam Sharma with my partner Patrick Mooney. We are your
0:13
Speaker 1: Cubs beat writers over at the Athletic and Patrick, this
0:19
Speaker 1: is the slump that felt inevitable when you when you
0:24
Speaker 1: have a twenty and three run, you are not as
0:27
Speaker 1: good as that run. And we're going to get into
0:32
Speaker 1: everything that's going wrong with this team. They're not as
0:37
Speaker 1: bad as what this looks like. I think fans, fans
0:40
Speaker 1: need to know that that you can freak out and
0:43
Speaker 1: you can react however you want to react. I don't
0:46
Speaker 1: think they're as bad as they've looked of late, but
0:50
Speaker 1: this is it's rough when you're going through it, when
0:53
Speaker 1: you're watching it, it does feel like what's good about
0:55
Speaker 1: this team? What can they do well? And honestly, Wednesday's
1:01
Speaker 1: game was about as low as it gets because you
1:05
Speaker 1: know offense is gonna slump. We say, I mean I
1:07
Speaker 1: said this when they were playing well, like the offense
1:10
Speaker 1: is going to hit a lull. This team is going
1:12
Speaker 1: to hit a lull. And and you know that, uh
1:16
Speaker 1: we knew the pitching injuries was We're going to catch
1:19
Speaker 1: up with them. The one thing that you that doesn't
1:22
Speaker 1: slump is defense. It can't slump. Now for an extented
1:25
Speaker 1: period of time. You may have a bad game, and
1:28
Speaker 1: Wednesday was a bad game in particular. What happened with
1:33
Speaker 1: Pete grow Armstrong was you know that that's the type
1:37
Speaker 1: of stuff that you know is going to be on
1:39
Speaker 1: low lights and watched over and over again. Why don't
1:44
Speaker 1: you kind of set the scene at Wrigley there of
1:47
Speaker 1: what happened and how Pete kind of handled it all?
1:52
Speaker 2: Well, this scene goes back to Sunday afternoon on the
1:58
Speaker 2: South Side and Pete trying to make an impossible play
2:02
Speaker 2: and getting into it with a female fan. What he
2:10
Speaker 2: said was indefensible, But I just don't think it kind
2:17
Speaker 2: of captures fully who he is as a person. Our
2:22
Speaker 2: interactions with him and our observations of him behind the
2:26
Speaker 2: scenes don't really line up with the language he used.
2:30
Speaker 2: He apologized on Monday. You were there for that at
2:33
Speaker 2: his locker. He's fined by Major League Baseball Tuesday night.
2:39
Speaker 2: You know, he's gliding and he makes all these plays
2:41
Speaker 2: look easy usually, but he kind of sticks his glove
2:46
Speaker 2: up he's gliding and it pops out of his glove
2:48
Speaker 2: for an error. Now that did not lead to a
2:50
Speaker 2: big inning, It was not directly responsible for Tuesday night's loss,
2:55
Speaker 2: but it was weird. And when I asked Craig count
3:00
Speaker 2: about that afterwards, you know, he gave some context around,
3:04
Speaker 2: you know, the way the wind was moving, the way
3:07
Speaker 2: the ball was hit, you know, kind of downplaying it.
3:10
Speaker 2: And then Wednesday night, it all kind of came crashing
3:15
Speaker 2: down on Pete. You know, a single up the middle,
3:18
Speaker 2: he's moving in, puts his glove down, It just totally
3:21
Speaker 2: whiffs on it. It rolls all the way toward the
3:24
Speaker 2: warning track, a Little League style inside the park home run,
3:30
Speaker 2: scores three runs. And look, it is not a coincidence
3:34
Speaker 2: that Pete is suddenly making mistakes on the field. You know,
3:39
Speaker 2: almost immediately after that video surfaces of his vulgar exchange
3:46
Speaker 2: with with a fan, and after kind of the heat
3:49
Speaker 2: that he felt, the conversations he's had with people close
3:56
Speaker 2: to him, you know, his co workers, about how he
4:00
Speaker 2: needs to comport himself, and you know, seeing all this
4:05
Speaker 2: come together is frankly kind of jarring. I mean, Pete
4:11
Speaker 2: signed up to be the face of the franchise, and
4:14
Speaker 2: I think that weight he's really feeling it right now,
4:18
Speaker 2: and so we spoke with him Wednesday night. He's at
4:24
Speaker 2: his locker in full uniform, speaking with Alex Spragman, who's
4:29
Speaker 2: also struggling, and Pete was there waiting for us. Stood
4:34
Speaker 2: up and acknowledged that in his experience, you know, physical
4:40
Speaker 2: things usually come from a mental place, which I took
4:44
Speaker 2: his confirmation that this has been weighing on him, and
4:51
Speaker 2: I think it's a collection of things. It's he's not
4:54
Speaker 2: performing at the plate the way he expects to. So
4:58
Speaker 2: like that is now car over to his defense, which
5:02
Speaker 2: has always been his thing, right of compartmentalizing it and
5:05
Speaker 2: separate rating the different parts of the game. And then obviously,
5:10
Speaker 2: when your name is in the news for all the
5:13
Speaker 2: wrong reasons and Eve, if it's not representative of who
5:16
Speaker 2: you are, it's still it's frustrating and disappointing. Pete before
5:22
Speaker 2: Wednesday's game, spoke with a group of kids from Chicago
5:29
Speaker 2: in the dugout. He is very good in those settings,
5:35
Speaker 2: We've seen it. He takes a lot of time to
5:38
Speaker 2: interact with fans, sign autographs, take selfies. But like, right now,
5:43
Speaker 2: this is the initial headline I put. I backed off
5:46
Speaker 2: that and we don't have headline control on the athletic
5:48
Speaker 2: but it's like, right now the Cubs have a PCA problem.
5:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you say, we know he's not that type
5:55
Speaker 1: of guy, right you and I know that people that
5:59
Speaker 1: talk to him know that. Here's the thing, it doesn't
6:02
Speaker 1: matter like we can we can say that, Reporters can
6:06
Speaker 1: say that, teammates can say that, like the image is set,
6:10
Speaker 1: like he that that video goes viral, people are going
6:14
Speaker 1: to make assumptions about what type of person Pete grow
6:17
Speaker 1: Armstrong is. And that's got a way on him. He
6:20
Speaker 1: understands that he's not stupid. He understands that he can
6:24
Speaker 1: behave in one way ninety nine percent of the time
6:27
Speaker 1: and that one percent that goes viral, and you know,
6:31
Speaker 1: he kind of loses his cool that that that's going
6:35
Speaker 1: to set the tone for a lot of other people,
6:37
Speaker 1: and people are going to see him through that lens.
6:40
Speaker 1: It doesn't help that. Look, Pete, Pete likes to talk
6:44
Speaker 1: and speak his mind. So he's ticked off some fans, right,
6:48
Speaker 1: He's ticked off Dodgers fans obviously, and just opposing fans
6:52
Speaker 1: don't really like him because he's this lightning rod among
6:57
Speaker 1: the fan base, right, Cubs fans chant PC A PA,
7:02
Speaker 1: and opposing fans get annoyed that every defensive play is
7:06
Speaker 1: a highlight of uh and and that this guy isn't
7:10
Speaker 1: even that good. They think he's overrated because his offensive
7:13
Speaker 1: numbers aren't what they were last year or you know,
7:16
Speaker 1: during that awesome stretch, so he's he's a lightning run.
7:20
Speaker 1: So any opportunity to jump on him, opposing fans will,
7:24
Speaker 1: and then Cubs fans are probably disappointed with what they saw,
7:28
Speaker 1: I mean, with the performance and then with what happened Sunday.
7:33
Speaker 1: So there's there's a lot going on for him, so
7:35
Speaker 1: that I'm sure, and he's aware of all these things,
7:37
Speaker 1: so that weighs on him, I'm sure. And to see
7:41
Speaker 1: it like kind of happen on the field unfold on
7:44
Speaker 1: the field is unfortunate, I don't. I think someone asked
7:49
Speaker 1: whether a day off was beyond the day off on Thursday, yeah,
7:54
Speaker 1: and and the council was adamant that that's not happening. Correct, Uh,
7:59
Speaker 1: he's or I guess I didn't see the reaction, but
8:03
Speaker 1: it was a no. Correct.
8:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, I asked, you know, just because when Craig Is
8:10
Speaker 2: asked about this stuff. He sort of just just does
8:13
Speaker 2: a play by play and explaining some of the like
8:18
Speaker 2: physical mechanics of the play and what went wrong, what happened,
8:22
Speaker 2: which we can all sort of see. Obviously, he is
8:28
Speaker 2: an expert in this space. So like there are details
8:32
Speaker 2: in general that he brings that, you know what, we appreciate,
8:35
Speaker 2: but that's not really what we were getting at. And
8:38
Speaker 2: so as he was doing the kind of rundown there,
8:42
Speaker 2: you know, at once he was done with that, I
8:45
Speaker 2: asked him, you know, beyond Thursday's off day, are you
8:51
Speaker 2: considering a longer reset for Pete? And he said no,
8:56
Speaker 2: and he he said it in a direct way without
9:02
Speaker 2: any hesitation. But also it was we can tell when council,
9:06
Speaker 2: you know, is annoyed. Like he understood the question. I'd
9:11
Speaker 2: be shocked if he didn't think about it. I was.
9:16
Speaker 2: I don't know if I was surprised that he was
9:18
Speaker 2: in the lineup all three games against the Brewers, but
9:21
Speaker 2: I thought that could have been a spot. I know
9:25
Speaker 2: it's the Brewers's division game, but we saw what he
9:27
Speaker 2: did with Kyle Tucker last year, giving him a breather
9:32
Speaker 2: during a huge series at Wrigley Field. So I guess
9:37
Speaker 2: we'll see late Friday morning when they finally post the
9:40
Speaker 2: lineup whether Council is sticking with that decision. I get
9:46
Speaker 2: why he wants to run him out there, and I
9:48
Speaker 2: think Craig has a lot of credibility with Pete. But
9:54
Speaker 2: your Pete's press conference when he after he signed that
9:58
Speaker 2: contract extension, it was kind of a this is your
10:01
Speaker 2: life moment and him just you know, shouting out all
10:04
Speaker 2: these different people who had helped him get to this point.
10:06
Speaker 2: And there were lots of people there in that room
10:08
Speaker 2: who helped him make a ton of money. And you know,
10:13
Speaker 2: if it took a village to get to that point,
10:14
Speaker 2: it's going to be another group effort to try and
10:16
Speaker 2: get him redirected. Because this is someone who is very emotional.
10:23
Speaker 2: He can be impulsive, he cares, he works hard, but
10:29
Speaker 2: like all of that has to be channeled in the
10:32
Speaker 2: right direction. And clearly he is at least a little distracted.
10:39
Speaker 2: And you know, this is a game of inches of
10:42
Speaker 2: split second reactions, and he is just not not locked
10:47
Speaker 2: in right now. Yeah it.
10:50
Speaker 1: He looked like he was about to kind of turn
10:53
Speaker 1: a corner, and I think Sunday kind of led it
10:56
Speaker 1: all to unravel, at least briefly. We'll see. We'll see
11:00
Speaker 1: Houston could be like a get right series very much
11:03
Speaker 1: a team that's not great this season. So the face
11:08
Speaker 1: some tough pitching. It could be all that they just
11:11
Speaker 1: they slumped, and then they face tough teams and add
11:15
Speaker 1: that up and it's this stretch that you're on. But
11:19
Speaker 1: beyond that, there's also injury news. So let's take a
11:22
Speaker 1: quick break, and the hits just keep coming for this
11:26
Speaker 1: pitching staff.
11:27
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11:30
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11:33
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12:30
Speaker 1: All right, Patrick, It had to send shivers down the
12:33
Speaker 1: spine of every cub Span and Great Council at Tommy Hodeby.
12:38
Speaker 1: With Edward Cabrera coming off the mound in the fourth inning,
12:43
Speaker 1: I believe he he didn't look right to me, like
12:49
Speaker 1: later on in the At some point in the third
12:51
Speaker 1: I noticed he just kept like it. He could not
12:54
Speaker 1: find the zone. I know he's not someone that's in
12:55
Speaker 1: the zone that much, but this I actually thought he
12:58
Speaker 1: was pitching one of his better games. Because I've not
13:04
Speaker 1: like that's a whole separate topic. I just think like
13:07
Speaker 1: Cabrera has not been as advertised, and maybe that's unfair,
13:11
Speaker 1: but I was expecting him to kind of you know,
13:15
Speaker 1: they you know, build him as someone that was just
13:18
Speaker 1: scratching the surface and they're getting him on the upswing,
13:21
Speaker 1: and he hasn't He hasn't really been that, especially when
13:27
Speaker 1: this team desperately needs starting pitchers to step up. But
13:33
Speaker 1: at least for now, it seems like they've avoided disaster.
13:37
Speaker 1: It's a blister. Those can linger, Those can be problems,
13:42
Speaker 1: but right now, it's better than an elbow or a
13:44
Speaker 1: shoulder or a lat or something like that. Hold on,
13:50
Speaker 1: hold on, I mute at you and didn't immune you.
13:52
Speaker 1: There you go.
13:54
Speaker 2: I mean, hitting comes and goes as much as Pete
13:59
Speaker 2: is in it right now, I think it's reasonable to
14:03
Speaker 2: think that he can be like a productive eight or
14:08
Speaker 2: nine hitter on a good team and get his numbers
14:11
Speaker 2: back to a respectable place and have some hot streaks
14:14
Speaker 2: and flashes that remind you why he was an All
14:19
Speaker 2: Star and in a you know, early MVP candidate last year.
14:22
Speaker 2: The pitching stuff is, you know why Jed Hoyer, you know,
14:27
Speaker 2: dreads those calls from the athletic trainers when he sees
14:29
Speaker 2: certain names pop up on his phone, and you're right,
14:36
Speaker 2: blister on the right middle finger is better than some
14:40
Speaker 2: of those worst case injuries, but his next start is
14:45
Speaker 2: in doubt. Craig Council acknowledged that they were going to
14:48
Speaker 2: kind of regroup on the off day, see how he
14:50
Speaker 2: presents on Friday, reassess their options. But I mean they
14:55
Speaker 2: were I mean it felt like they were running out
14:58
Speaker 2: of pitching almost a month ago. Yeah, and you know,
15:03
Speaker 2: when if you have to subtract him for any amount
15:07
Speaker 2: of time, as underwhelming as he's been thus far, he's
15:11
Speaker 2: always sort of represented this untapped potential or upside to
15:16
Speaker 2: the group. And again, we haven't really seen it yet.
15:21
Speaker 2: I think everyone was sort of waiting for that curious if,
15:27
Speaker 2: all right, your team's about to get swept. It's a
15:30
Speaker 2: division rival, you know, a team that eliminated you from
15:33
Speaker 2: last year's playoffs, the team scuffling, like can you deliver
15:37
Speaker 2: one of those you know, just sort of masterful performances
15:41
Speaker 2: to get things back on track, and obviously the great
15:44
Speaker 2: defense that usually back ups the Cubs pitchers, we just
15:48
Speaker 2: went away. The offense was non existent, and you know,
15:55
Speaker 2: you have Cabrera saying, you know, my mindset is I'm
16:00
Speaker 2: going to compete in five days. It's like, okay, great,
16:02
Speaker 2: but you know he's been dealing with this for a bit.
16:05
Speaker 2: Whatever they've been doing did not work on Wednesday night.
16:09
Speaker 2: And in general, you should take the over on pitching
16:14
Speaker 2: injuries and maybe they'll slow play it, maybe they'll you
16:21
Speaker 2: drag out the decision a bit, but you gotta think
16:27
Speaker 2: Javier Asad is sort of on call, uh, depending on
16:34
Speaker 2: how on how this shakes out.
16:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they can't even if they wanted to push
16:40
Speaker 1: it back a start and get like kind of sneak
16:43
Speaker 1: AAVI or Asad in there, they can't. They they can't
16:47
Speaker 1: call up Asad or Wix because they've both been sent
16:51
Speaker 1: down recently. They were uh wis obviously, you know if
16:56
Speaker 1: people aren't aware he was activated and then option to
16:59
Speaker 1: triple a recently. I think it was over the week
17:01
Speaker 1: last weekend, uh, maybe earlier this week. So that those
17:06
Speaker 1: moves mean they can't be called up outside of an
17:09
Speaker 1: injury for two weeks. So so someone needs to be
17:14
Speaker 1: put on the IL. So Cabrera would have to hit
17:16
Speaker 1: the iel to call up Aside. So you could try
17:19
Speaker 1: and sneak in a normal situation, you could try and
17:21
Speaker 1: sneak us out in there, call them up for reliever,
17:24
Speaker 1: have them make a spot start, send him back down,
17:27
Speaker 1: get a reliever back up. They just don't they can't
17:29
Speaker 1: do make those maneuverings right now. This is a situation
17:33
Speaker 1: where it's it's not worst case scenario, but it's it's
17:40
Speaker 1: feeling like pretty dire with the starting pitching. There's no
17:44
Speaker 1: there's very little depth. One more significant injury and and
17:49
Speaker 1: you're really scratching the bottom of the barrel and you
17:53
Speaker 1: have no depth after that. Once if there's another real
17:57
Speaker 1: like long term injury or when I say long term,
18:00
Speaker 1: you know, missing more than a starter or two. Asad's
18:03
Speaker 1: in the rotation, you have nobody else behind him. There's
18:06
Speaker 1: nobody that you can call upon to make starts. I
18:10
Speaker 1: mean there is someone, but not someone that you know
18:14
Speaker 1: you expected to use at the start of the season,
18:18
Speaker 1: and and not someone that you know has you know
18:21
Speaker 1: that you can expect to give you quality innings. It's
18:24
Speaker 1: they're they're in a rough, rough part of things right now,
18:28
Speaker 1: like all these injuries have happened at once. Uh. They
18:33
Speaker 1: it's written like this stretch of games is just uh
18:37
Speaker 1: has just been brutal, like a bad time for Showdown
18:39
Speaker 1: in Monaga to have his worst start. Like when you
18:44
Speaker 1: see something like that, and wonder why is he pushing
18:46
Speaker 1: showed him Anaga. It doesn't look like Imanaga has his stuff.
18:50
Speaker 1: He has to, like Craig Council, has no choice but
18:52
Speaker 1: to push his starters right now. He's got to get
18:54
Speaker 1: every ring, every out of them as as as he
18:58
Speaker 1: can because the next day is also likely a short start.
19:03
Speaker 1: Like he has not been getting length from his starters.
19:06
Speaker 1: He's not like he. I mean, good job by the
19:10
Speaker 1: bullpen overall on Wednesday night to even keep that a
19:14
Speaker 1: close game. The offense did nothing but that that. I mean,
19:18
Speaker 1: these guys have been asked to do a lot. They're
19:22
Speaker 1: actually in a decent spot all things considered when it
19:26
Speaker 1: comes to the bullpen. But this is this is a
19:29
Speaker 1: rough stretch right now. We'll see how long. Like blisters,
19:33
Speaker 1: I said, it's you avoided something disastrous there, but blisters
19:37
Speaker 1: can be annoying. They can last, and they can he
19:40
Speaker 1: could Like, you're right, don't assume that just because he's
19:44
Speaker 1: saying he's he's ready to go back out there or
19:47
Speaker 1: he's going to compete in five days, Like I'll believe
19:51
Speaker 1: it when I see it. With stuff like this, this is,
19:54
Speaker 1: this is tough. They can linger they can cause they
19:59
Speaker 1: can reimmor urge later in the season. It's all it's
20:02
Speaker 1: just a pain in the butt, so not ideal right
20:05
Speaker 1: now for this team. Patrick, why don't we wrap it
20:09
Speaker 1: up and we will be back with another episode. Well,
20:12
Speaker 1: we're going to talk more about what's going on right
20:14
Speaker 1: now because there's so much more to talk about. So
20:17
Speaker 1: we'll be back with another episode. Thanks so much for
20:19
Speaker 1: listening to everyone. This is Northside Territory. Make sure to rate, review, subscribe,
20:22
Speaker 1: subscribe to the YouTube channel, and subscribe to The Athletic
20:25
Speaker 1: where Patrick and I are on top of all things cubs.
20:28
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone, Take care,