Chicago Cubs star Pete Crow-Armstrong was livid on Wednesday afternoon after their 2-0 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Crew chief Alfonso Márquez ended up backing him up later on, too.
Crow-Armstrong was on third in the sixth inning after kicking off the frame with a double. But as Crow-Armstrong started to work his way down the third base line like he was stealing home, Diamondbacks starter Eduardo Rodriquez threw a quick pitch — but only after he had already started his initial windup and it appeared that he had pulled his left foot off the mound.
Crow-Armstrong thought he had drawn a balk, but Márquez and the rest of the umpire crew disagreed. Crow-Armstrong was furious, and had to be held back by third base coach Quintin Berry.
“I saw four umpires miss a pretty obvious play,” Crow-Armstrong said after the game, via ESPN. “They’re out there every day, just like we are. Their one job is to get calls right, and if they get it wrong, they’re supposed to talk about it, figure it out, and get it right. And they didn’t.”
That play is not reviewable, so the game continued on. Nico Hoerner then struck out to end the inning, and the Cubs did not score. Had the balk been called, Crow-Armstrong would have put a run on the board and given the Cubs the lead.
While it couldn’t be changed in the moment, Márquez admitted the mistake after the game.
“We just didn’t see it,” he said. “After looking at the video, it looked like [Rodriguez] stepped off.”
The Diamondbacks ended up scoring in the bottom of that inning, thanks to a homer from Jordan Lawlar, and then they added another in the eighth to secure the 2-0 win. That wrapped up the three-game series at Chase Field, and moved the Diamondbacks to 71-63 on the season. The Cubs, with a 76-58 record, are still in second in the NL Central race.
This marks the second time in the series that things have gotten heated, too. Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo even called Cubs manager Craig Counsell to apologize and admit that they were wrong after things got hot on Monday night after thinking the Cubs were relaying pitches.
Crow-Armstrong, a favorite in the NL MVP race, holds a .276 batting average with 33 home runs and 83 RBI this season. His double on Wednesday night was his lone hit in the contest.
While the Cubs are still leading the NL wild-card race and are in a great position on that front, Wednesday’s loss after yet another controversy undoubtedly stings during the final stretch of the season.
“They flat-out missed it,” Counsell said of the call. “It’s obvious to everybody on TV. It’s obvious to anybody. They missed it.”
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