It is CORRECT to say that an 0-fer to start a player’s big league career, even a long 0-fer, does not alone represent who that player is. Young players are going to have adjustment periods. Also hitless stretches happen for everyone sometimes. Also flukey bounces happen. Also bad match-ups. Also only intermittent opportunities. Just because Pete Crow-Armstrong started his Major League career 0-for-16 at the plate, that didn’t really prove much about what the 21/22-year-old was going to be in the long run.
Still, it would be impossible for it not to get in a guy’s head. Impossible. Consider that PCA was first exposed to the big leagues almost eight chronological months ago. That’s a really long time to be in a position to think about not having a big league hit, and it probably takes a herculean level of mental skills not to take that with you to the plate each time.
So you can imagine, then, what a tremendous weight was lifted yesterday when Pete Crow-Armstrong sent a pitch into the Wrigley Field bleachers. On some level, it meant just as much as an infield bleeder or bloop dropping in would’ve meant. A first big league hit. Monkey off the back. Now just play.
But, hey, if you’re going to wait that long for your first hit anyway, why not make it a game-winning home run, right?
You *can* do this. That’s what a moment like that can say going forward. You have the ability to absolutely clobber a 95 mph fastball from a very good big league reliever. No go forth and just be you.
The hugs were the best part. “That was by far the best part of that hit, that swing, all of that,” PCA said, per the Sun-Times, “was getting to embrace the people who have been in my corner since all of them met me.”
Beautiful moment. And yes, PCA said wanting that first hit was on his mind – “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about it all that much” – but he was happy that it came at the right time in the game:
If it feels like a lot of Cubs prospects had a homer for their first big league hit, that’s because a lot have:
Just past the cut-off on that list? This one:
Pretty fun that the guy for whom PCA was traded also hit a game-winning homer as his first big league hit.