WASHINGTON — The book is a breezy read, just 128 pages long, and Pete Crow-Armstrong is taking little bites of it, tucking it in his bag from hotel to the Chicago Cubs clubhouse, reclining in the video room to knock out a chapter a few hours before resuming his remarkable, potentially historic season.

“Short, but really good,” Crow-Armstrong says of Small Things Like These, Claire Keegan’s novella that won the 2022 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.

There’s no grander lesson he can glean from a fictional work on Ireland’s Magdalene laundries and apply to the art of putting together a major league epic across 162 games. Yet by shortening his focus to smaller segments that add up to a grander whole, Crow-Armstrong might be unlocking the final key to an MVP season.

One year after a similarly epic year went sideways with a grim and demoralizing August slump, Crow-Armstrong is hitting the accelerator even harder in a second half that has him firmly positioned to post the most valuable year, at least mathematically, across the major leagues.

 It is a two-man race for NL MVP, PCA vs. the great Shohei Ohtani, whose 6.4 WAR while both hitting and pitching can’t measure up to Crow-Armstrong’s 7.5 mark, as tabulated by Baseball-Reference. (The gap is larger – 8.0 to 6.4 – per FanGraph’s calculations).

As the calendar gets deeper into August, it’s clear Crow-Armstrong is vanquishing any notion of another second-half swoon, which torpedoed his breakout 2025 season. In a 25-game stretch from July 25-Aug. 21, PCA hit zero home runs, produced a .195/.265/.287 slash line and a .553 OPS. He struck out 25% of the time – 29 strikeouts to five walks – and the Cubs in that span fell from a first-place tie in the NL Central to seven games behind the champion Milwaukee Brewers.

In 2026, the August script has been flipped.

The Cubs, winners of nine of their last 12 games, have roared within three games of the first-place Brewers, closest they’ve been since May 24. And Crow-Armstrong, in 25 games since the All-Star break, has only doubled down on his excellent first-half production, posting a .965 OPS with 18 extra-base hits and six steals in seven tries, all while playing a peerless center field.

It is never easy. Yet in those times when it gets hard, Crow-Armstrong brings himself back to the smaller picture, knowing no hard time will endure too long.

“I just didn’t want to let it get away from me like I did last year,” Crow-Armstrong tells USA TODAY Sports. “And I think that has nothing to do with numbers, or the results that I can’t see before they happen.

“I want to just keep this going. I’m not putting too much pressure on. Last year was last year. And it was a great reference and great to look back on and think, how can I relate it to this moment?

“It is tough to look back on sometimes. I have a couple bad games and I’m like, ‘Oh god, here we go again.’ But that’s how I frame it and that’s not the healthiest way to frame it. So, if I choose to look at it in a productive way, then I think I act on productivity, too.”

MV-Pete?

Perhaps mastering the mindset can be challenging when Crow-Armstrong manages one of the most unique toolsets in modern baseball history.

Listed at 6-foot, 184 pounds, Crow-Armstrong nonetheless can crank 27 home runs in 122 games, the most recent a 437-foot clout that banged off the façade of the third deck at Nationals Park, sizzling off the bat at 111.5 mph.

And he can also lap center fielders in outs above average, posting a major league-best 22, edging out St. Louis second baseman JJ Wetherholt’s 20 but far beyond Boston’s Ceddane Rafaela, second among center fielders with 14.

His added bit of statistical armor this season is plate approach: Crow-Armstrong has nearly tripled his walk rate, from 4.5% a year ago to 12.1% in 2026, protectant against any funk lasting too long.

Ohtani can dazzle on any night. Yet with exactly 75% of their season elapsed, the 71-51 Cubs are starting to believe the MVP race may become settled business.

“I think he should win it. I think Pete should win MVP,” says Cubs third baseman Alex Bregman, an AL MVP runner-up in 2019. “Obviously, I don’t have a vote, I don’t have a say. I just watch him play every day so I’m a big fan of his game.

“Obviously, a big fan of Ohtani, as well. He does stuff that nobody on planet earth can do. I’m a little biased. But I believe Pete has just been unbelievable this year in every phase of the game.”

Crow-Armstrong is still just 24 years old. Perhaps this is his “normal” and if so, the Cubs’ six-year, $115 million agreement with him that takes effect next season may look like a bargain.

But let’s stay in the moment and consider these 2026 Cubs.

PCA’s Cubs are ‘never out’

Their signing of Bregman to a five-year, $175 million deal jolted Cubs fans accustomed to finishing out of the money in such derbies, at least in the six years since the club jettisoned slugger Kyle Schwarber to save a few bucks after the 2020 season.

A new league and a permanent home were bound to bring adjustments, and Bregman hit just six home runs in his first 69 games. Yet one of baseball’s most cerebral players never leaves the workshop, and after establishing career highs with three homers and seven RBIs in an Aug. 12 game in Washington, said the recent work may have paid off for good.

Crow-Armstrong absorbed Bregman’s tutelage and watched as the two-time World Series champion assimilated into the Cubs’ culture. And wondered, what would it look like once he returned to his usual level of production?

After Bregman posted a .394/.460.788 slash line in his past in his past 16 games, we are finding out.

“Anytime Alex Bregman is playing an Alex Bregman brand of baseball, it’s just good for the program,” says Crow-Armstrong. “I enjoy looking at it like if we were playing as well as we’ve been playing and No. 3 hadn’t played his best brand of baseball earlier, when he does, that’s huge.”

In turn, Bregman sees the dynamism PCA provides and now knows how it can carry for an entire 162-game campaign. Crow-Armstrong is batting .318 with two outs, a staggering .361 with runners in scoring position.

“He’s got so much energy,” says Bregman, now in his 11th major league season. “He’s not scared. He’s got so much confidence in himself. He plays the game hard and it’s fun to be his teammate.”

Something is certainly percolating. The Cubs have posted 11 walk-off wins, have won 10 of 16 extra-inning games and are 18-13 in one-run games.

The close-and-late scenarios should only improve with reinforcements that arrived at the trade deadline: Starting pitchers Kevin Gausman and Clay Holmes, reliever Ryan Zeferjahn and reserve outfielder Tyrone Taylor, the former Met who’s already allowed Crow-Armstrong to take three days at DH since his arrival 10 days ago.

For a club that reached the NL Division Series last year, the weapons are of course designed to win a World Series. Yet it won’t hurt in their divisional battle against the Brewers – or if they meet up again in the postseason.

“We’re never out. We’ve shown that time and time again with extra-inning wins, ninth-inning wins,” says Crow-Armstrong. “I choose to kind of apply that to the overarching theme of the year. We’ve kind of been playing catch-up with those guys for the whole year and that’s cool. (The Brewers) are a really good ballclub. They always find ways to win.

“I think it would be really nice to win the division. But we’re focusing on our game.”

The soundtrack to this season once again includes chants of “MVP!” – at Wrigley Field or before the Cubs’ large throngs of road fans – when Crow-Armstrong strolls to the plate or saves another couple runs in the field.

He’s joked that dislodging Ohtani – aiming for his fifth MVP award and third consecutive honor in the NL – would require him to take up pitching in a desperate attempt to match Ohtani’s two-way appeal.

Asked about the chants, PCA professes his gratitude but, before getting too far down the road, gets back to the short game, the narrow focus. His first MVP just might be  coming his way.

Yet he can wait a little while longer before that chapter is written.

“I definitely appreciate it,” he says. “I got some last year. And I don’t look into all that much. It’s obviously a really cool thing to hear.

“But I’m not, yet.”