{"id":506893,"date":"2026-01-05T21:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T21:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/506893\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T21:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T21:39:12","slug":"the-12th-day-of-cubsmas-12-five-star-catches-by-pete-crow-armstrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/506893\/","title":{"rendered":"The 12th day of Cubsmas: 12+ five star catches by Pete Crow-Armstrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the first day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
An Anthony Rizzo retirement for the ages<\/a>,<\/p>\n

On the second day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
A $2 scorecard<\/a><\/p>\n

On the third day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
Three Schwarbombs in the first All-Star Game Home Run Swing-Off<\/a><\/p>\n

On the fourth day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
Four playoff wins<\/a><\/p>\n

On the fifth day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
A five game winning streak<\/a><\/p>\n

On the sixth day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
A six (and a half) game lead<\/a><\/p>\n

On the seventh day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
Seven walk-off wins<\/a><\/p>\n

On the eighth day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
Eight home runs on the Fourth of July<\/a><\/p>\n

On the ninth day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
Nine incredible Dansby Swanson plays in the Postseason<\/a><\/p>\n

On the tenth day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
Ten All Star selections for Ryne Sandberg<\/a><\/p>\n

On the eleventh day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
Eleven runs prevented by Nico Hoerner<\/a><\/p>\n

On the twelfth day of Cubsmas
My true love gave to me
12+ five-star catches by Pete Crow-Armstrong
11 runs prevented by Nico Hoerner
Ten All Star selections for Ryne Sandberg
Nine incredible Dansby Swanson plays in the Postseason
Eight home runs on the Fourth of July
Seven walk-off wins
A six (and a half) game lead
A five game winning streak
Four playoff wins
Three Schwarbombs in the first All-Star Game Home Run Swing-Off
A $2 scorecard
And an Anthony Rizzo retirement for the ages<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the Twelfth Day of Christmas and what better way to wrap up a festive look back at 2025 than with one of the greatest defensive shows on Earth: Pete Crow-Armstrong playing center field for the Chicago Cubs. I admit I fudged a bit here, 12 actually sells PCA a bit short for the defensive season he had in 2025. According to Statcast, PCA had 19 five-star catches in 32 opportunities last season. For comparison, the next best fielder in MLB, Platinum Glove Winner and Red Sox centerfielder Ceddanne Rafaela, had seven five-star catches out of 26 opportunities in 2025.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look back at 12 of the best catches PCA made last season.<\/p>\n

PCA robs Juan Soto at Wrigley<\/p>\n

Soto hit this ball 102 miles per hour into the gap, that\u2019s supposed to be a double. Not when PCA is in center field, check out this diving catch [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He can make the same play to his left<\/p>\n

Ozzie Albies doesn\u2019t hit this ball quite as hard as Soto\u2019s, but the result is the same. PCA has Wrigley Field covered from gap to gap [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He can come in on a ball, too<\/p>\n

This little bloop looks like it should fall into shallow center for a base hit, but instead PCA comes in and steals a hit [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

No hits for you, Andrew Vaughn<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worth remembering that part of what fueled an unbelievable Brewers run to catch and surpass the Cubs in the standings was an incredible run from former White Sox first round pick Andrew Vaughn. Whatever magic was in his bat in the second half wasn\u2019t enough to get a hit in the vicinity of PCA [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

PCA\u2019s skills in center are so elite he makes this sliding grab of what would have been an Elly De La Cruz hit look routine [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Turning a routine catch into a double play<\/p>\n

When the Red Sox came to town, PCA got a chance to show off his throwing arm in addition to his glove. Watch him double off Abraham Toro [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Aaron Judge scalded this ball to the gap, but PCA\u2019s got a great read on it and hops [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

PCA shows off his glove on the 4th of July<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll always remember the 4th of July, 2025 for the eight home runs the Cubs hit off Cardinals pitching to set a new franchise record, but PCA was out there showing off his glove too [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Brendan Donovan thought he had a home run with this long fly ball to center field. Pete Crow-Armstrong had other ideas [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My favorite catch of the year<\/p>\n

This is a double. The Cubs have a one run lead with two outs in the eighth and Brice Turang hits a double, or at least he did if any other person on the planet is playing center field. I am still dumbfounded every time I watch PCA streak in from center to make this catch [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This had extra bases written all over it<\/p>\n

Until PCA found his way to the gap to take extra bases away from Alex Call [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stopping rallies before they start<\/p>\n

TJ Friedl and the Reds are only down two in the ninth when PCA turned this hit into an out (and eventually a Daniel Palencia save) [VIDEO]<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On the first day of CubsmasMy true love gave to meAn Anthony Rizzo retirement for the ages, On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":506894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,138,24,52175,4245,161,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-506893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-chicago-cubs-commentary-and-analysis","12":"tag-chicagocubs","13":"tag-cubs","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115844662207925132","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=506893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/506893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/506894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=506893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=506893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=506893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}