Pete goes golfing
The first thing you need to know about Pete Crow-Armstrong is that he is fast. He is so fast, in fact, that there were whispers as he came up in the minor leagues, whispers of someone fresh out of college who could handily cover center field. There’s a lot more area to work with in center field than either side of the outfield, so the role is hard mode. And he was on some pure Olympic sprinter stuff, getting to balls so fast that he’d slow his pace to a jog for catches that flatly should not be made.
When he got called up, nobody expected him to remain that good. The major leagues are different. Injuries happen. People can overextend themselves. And yet, watch him:
- Get to a ball so fast that he had to stop for a full pace before catching it behind his back.
- Steal home from, uh, first base. You are not supposed to do that! Even during spring training!
- Backhand it while being mindful of the ivy. Behind that ivy wall is brick, for the record, and you don’t really want to run at full speed into it. People have tried! Nobody liked it!
- Turn a routine double into an inside-the-park home run. If you watch no other video here, watch that one. It is astonishing, baseball-breaking, the kind of thing that flexes the rules. It is why we’re writing so much text about this guy today.
But this all ignores an important fact about Pete Crow-Armstrong, which is that he has also come to rake. Nobody expected this, and here we are. He has 15 home runs on the season so far, on pace for 45 as of press time. But he has also come to rake in a way that makes no sense for baseball.
In order to understand this, we have to talk about what makes for a well-placed pitch for a home run. Usually you want the pitch to come in as close to the middle of the strike zone as possible; that’s what makes it the most hittable; that’s why a strike zone exists in the first place. That is also why pitchers try to paint the corners of the strike zone, or throw pitches outside of the strike zone in ways that encourage batters to swing at them.
Generally speaking, you do not want to swing at pitches that go outside of the strike zone, especially below the strike zone, towards the dirt. We have a word for that, friends, and that is golfing. I find myself yelling “golfing” at the TV whenever batters get deceived in this way, which is often. Youngsters want to be heroes and chase the ball, and so you get people dilking it way out of their comfort zones all the time.
But Pete can golf? Pete can golf meaningfully. Pete is maybe the only baseball player to successfully golf. Watch the location of the pitch on this home run. Then rewind it and look at the trajectory of his swing. He is golfing. He is golfing in a way that puts balls on Sheffield. Swings like that do not put balls on Sheffield. Call it a weird body, I guess, one that looks more suited to track & field, and yet.
He is doing all of this while being very “23 years old” as an adjective, exuding the kind of zero chill that any of us would if we were thrust into his deeply unrelatable position. And then he keeps turning out highlight reels that keep forcing you to check your video player to make sure it’s not sped up.