The Chicago Cubs rallied from a 6-1 deficit and beat the Oakland Athletics 7-6 on Thursday night at Wrigley Field, winning on a ninth-inning RBI single by Pete Crow-Armstrong.
Chicago plated four runs on seven hits in the ninth to complete the comeback. Crow-Armstrong, who had lost a fly ball in center field that turned into an inside-the-park home run earlier in the game, later homered and then delivered the game-winning single in the ninth. Starter Shota Imanaga surrendered four home runs in the outing.
The numbers mattered immediately: a five-run hole erased, a four-run rally in the final frame and a one-run walk-off to finish 7-6. By holding on, the Cubs avoided falling into last place in the NL Central by the smallest of percentage points — a standing consequence that would have followed a loss on Thursday.
Context deepens the result. The victory handed Chicago a much-needed jolt after a 5-18 stretch that had flattened momentum. Earlier this season the club had managed six walk-off wins in its first 37 games; the previous such finish came on May 6 — a date that, two days later, prefaced a 10-game winning streak that put them 15 games north of even. Those extremes underline how abrupt the team’s swing has been this year.
The game’s internal contradiction was stark and unavoidable: Crow-Armstrong’s rare fielding gaffe directly produced an inside-the-park homer, then he was the player who finished the night. He described the misplay plainly. "The first time it’s happened to me here. Pretty helpless feeling," he said, later adding, "But it’s about moving on. There’s not much you can do about that except hope you see it next time." Crow-Armstrong also acknowledged the emotional lift of the comeback: "Whenever you get to run and jump around like little kids, it’s always a blast."
Shortly after the miscue, Crow-Armstrong erased its sting by homering from the batter’s box and then by coming through in the ninth. He credited teammates and a change in mindset for his response: "In the past, I might have dwelled on that, and that always ends up affecting how you go about the rest of your day. People having my back, me not hiding from the next at-bat, I’m growing up a little bit and proud of that."
Dansby Swanson framed the win as more than a single score. "This is who we are," he said, and later expanded: "For the last three weeks, we’ve not been that. So for everyone to get [to see], ‘Hey, this is what we’ve been talking about, this is what we’ve been working toward, this is what this group is capable of,’ to have that show up in so many different ways, from so many different guys in the lineup … that’s what this group is about."
What remains unresolved is the practical fallout: the win kept the Cubs from dropping to the bottom of the division, but whether Thursday’s finish alters their place in the NL Central over the coming days is the clearest immediate question left open by the result. The rally gives Chicago a lift; how much it changes the team’s trajectory will show up in the standings and the games to follow.
