Cubs 8, Braves 4: Crow-Armstrong's 43rd and 44th Break a Left-Handed Record

Two homers, an MVP chant, and a record Billy Williams used to own

September 16, 2026 - Chicago - The Wrigley Field crowd was already on "M-V-P" when Pete Crow-Armstrong stepped in during the seventh. He hit his second homer of the night to right-center, his 44th, and the chant got louder. ESPN's recap said the two blasts broke the Chicago Cubs' record for left-handed homers in a season. Tuesday he had tied Billy Williams at 42. Wednesday he passed him, then added one more.

The Chicago Cubs beat the Atlanta Braves 8-4. Alex Bregman finished a single short of the cycle and drove in four. Shota Imanaga threw six innings and one run.

Cloudy. 69 degrees. Wind 10 mph in from left. First pitch 6:40 p.m. Attendance 35,779. The game lasted 2 hours, 44 minutes. Chicago had 12 hits. Atlanta had eight. The Cubs are 85-68. The Braves are 89-64.

Manager Craig Counsell, standing next to Bregman after the second homer, told him they do not get to see this. The MLB recap has the quote. "You spend your whole life in baseball and you just don't see this happen on a baseball field. You're grateful to be a part of it."

A double that got thrown out, then the homers started

Bregman doubled Michael Busch home in the first and was thrown out at third, Michael Harris II to Ozzie Albies to Austin Riley to Ha-Seong Kim. 1-0. Ugly on the bases. Still a run.

Crow-Armstrong's 43rd was a fly ball to right in the third. 2-0. Bregman led off the fourth with his 26th homer, to left, off JR Ritchie. 3-0. The fifth was the inning that made the box score look like a video game. Carson Kelly scored on Crow-Armstrong's triple to right. 4-0. Bregman tripled to left, Crow-Armstrong and Seiya Suzuki scoring. 6-0. Two triples, two homers, and a double already in the books for the 3-4 pairing. Ritchie lasted 4 2/3: seven hits, six runs, two walks, five strikeouts, two homers, 82 pitches. He is 1-3.

Crow-Armstrong finished 3-for-4 with two homers, a triple, a walk, three runs, and three RBI. Bregman went 3-for-4 with a homer, a double, a triple, and four RBI. Kelly had two hits. Tyrone Taylor doubled and scored. Ian Happ doubled.

The MLB recap, citing Sarah Langs, said this was Crow-Armstrong's 10th career game with at least 10 total bases, three more than any other player before age 25 since at least 1900. Only Williams and Sammy Sosa (12 apiece) have more in a Cubs career. He has also tied Nelson Cruz (six in 2019) for the most such games in a single season since at least 1900. He has 27 homers at home. Williams had 28 at Wrigley in 1970. That is the next number.

"I definitely have lost my fair share of homers here," Crow-Armstrong said, per the MLB recap. "I feel like it's playing pretty friendly this year. It's been pretty kind to us."

Imanaga's six, then Atlanta found two in the ninth

Imanaga threw six innings. Four hits. One run. Zero walks. Eight strikeouts. One hundred pitches. He is 11-10. Ronald Acuña Jr. scored on Matt Olson's groundout in the sixth. 1-6. That was the only run Imanaga allowed. Acuña had two hits, including a double. Mauricio Dubón went 2-for-4 with a double, a triple, and an RBI.

Aaron Civale allowed Austin Riley's RBI groundout in the seventh, Dubón scoring. 2-6. Then Crow-Armstrong's second homer made it 7-2. Michael Conforto singled Taylor home in the eighth. 8-2. Ryan Rolison walked a batter and let two in during the ninth. Dubón doubled Albies home. Sean Murphy grounded Harris in. 8-4. Ryan Zeferjahn got the last three outs.

Bregman flew out to center in the seventh with a cycle on the line. "I tried to hit a single, as opposed to trying to do what I was doing," he said, per the MLB recap. "It's stupid. I should've just kept trying to hit a homer... I don't know how many chances I'll have at a cycle, because that triple's hard when you're this slow." He also said Pete is on cycle watch when he wakes up in the morning.

Braves manager Walt Weiss, per the MLB recap: "It's been an unbelievable year. It's amazing how far that kid has come in the last year or two. He hit about every pitch that we threw at him tonight."

A half-game, 40-40 still in play, and a division Atlanta still leads

The win kept Chicago a half-game ahead of Philadelphia for the top National League Wild Card. Atlanta still leads the NL East. The Braves are 89-64. A Wednesday in mid-September at Wrigley does not decide that race. It does send a club that has watched Crow-Armstrong rewrite the left-handed homer list into an off-day with 8-4 still on the board.

Crow-Armstrong has 37 stolen bases, the MLB recap said. Forty would give him the seventh 40-40 season in major league history. He also sits at 10.4 WAR. The homers are the noise. The rest of the line is why the chants have a case.

Atlanta scored four and still left Wrigley having watched the other team's 3-4 hitters take over every inning that mattered. Ritchie did not make it through five. The bullpen inherited 6-0. That is a long night in a park that was already loud.

AthX Engine after the baseball

AthX Engine (our projection and scoring system) put Crow-Armstrong at 17 hitting fantasy points, first on the slate. Bregman had 14. Imanaga had 24 pitching FP. Chicago finished with 15 team FP, tied for third. Atlanta finished at minus-1.

Fantasy points measure the night under platform scoring rules. Share prices also move with traders through dynamic pricing. They are related. They are not the same number.

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*Sources: ESPN recap and box score, MLB.com Gameday wrap, MLB.com schedule, and AthX Engine scoring. Information only; not financial advice.*