Pete Crow-Armstrong, who entered the game with a .183 batting average, went 3 for 4 with a run and a key RBI as the Chicago Cubs beat the Kansas City Royals 7-3 on Sunday.
Although he was glad to help the team win, Crow-Armstrong and many of his teammates felt down about losing Christopher Morel, who was traded to the Tampa Bay Rays during the game in exchange for Isaac Paredes.
“He’s a special human,” Crow-Armstrong said about Morel. “We’re going to miss his energy for sure, his smile. Reaching his full Christopher Morel potential every day is a guy showing up every day in the clubhouse.”
Crow-Armstrong got two of his three hits and his RBI against Royals starter Cole Ragans.
“I saw him pretty good,” he said. “I tend to see lefties relatively okay. He’s a really good pitcher. I’m glad he doesn’t use his change-up against lefties, because that’s a good pitch. The Cubbies just had a really good offensive day.
“We want to try to have days like this every day to help have a winning season.”
The Cubs (51-56) are 12-8 in their last 20 games after a rough 3-9 stretch in their previous 12 games.
Javier Assad (5-3) gave up three runs on five hits in six innings.
“It was an impressive outing,” Chicago manager Craig Counsell said of Assad’s performance. “I don’t think Javi started out really well, (but) I think (catcher) Christian (Bethancourt) did a really good job of sticking with him, and I thought Javi did a good job of maybe doing things different than he’s done in the past.
“We saw some more off-speed stuff today, and he got his off-speed stuff going, which was really fun to watch.”
Assad said he was focused on pitching as long as possible.
“I just tried to go out there and execute,” he said through an interpreter. “I started a little shaky, but I just went out there and attacked the zone.”
