Can the Chicago Cubs regain their mojo?

The Chicago Cubs got another win on Friday night, their fourth in five games.

The 3-2 victory over the Los Angeles Angels didn’t get the team any closer to the first place Milwaukee Brewers, who also won that night, in the NL Central Division. It was also a close and unnecessarily nail-biting “W” picked up at almost the last possible moment.

But the win marked the return to life of Kyle Tucker and Pete Crow-Armstrong who, prior to the Angels series opener, had batted a combined .146 in the month of August with no home runs and just 3 total RBIs.

Tucker and PCA go long…finally

The offensive linchpins would each only go a modest 1-for-4 on the evening, but the hits were both solo home runs that helped push the Cubs to victory. Tucker had not homered since July 19 and Crow-Armstrong hadn’t hit a long ball since July 23.

Tucker pulled his line-drive shot in his first at bat off lefty Tyler Anderson, who had been on fans’ and media’s short list of desired Cubs acquisitions at this season’s trade deadline.

Crow-Armstrong’s homer came in the top of the ninth, off Angels closer Kenley Jansen with the game tied 2-2 at the time.

Both four-baggers were treated with great emotion, along with a heaping helping of relief.

“It’s about time I stepped up in a situation like that,” Crow-Armstrong told reporters after the game. “I haven’t played my part, up to this point, since the (All-Star) break. It’s definitely a feeling to build off.”

Tucker was characteristically reserved when commenting on his own drought-breaker.

“It was cool,” he told reporters in the locker room. “Haven’t done that in a while.”

“Two guys that needed a big hit,” Manager Craig Counsell told media, referring to Crow-Armstrong and Tucker. “Getting them a contribution to a ‘W’ on the offensive side– I think it makes everybody feel good.”

Getting their mojo back (at the perfect time)?

But this could be more than just two home runs to propel the team to victory. It could be more than two key components of the team’s offensive getting the weight of extended slumps off their shoulders. This could be the key to getting the Cubs back to being what they were in the first part of the season, when their dominance was starting to stir up World Series talk.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that, in a sport where the mental aspect is so much part of the game, an emotional reboot like Friday’s could be the start of another wave of momentum– momentum, by the way, which would be coming at the perfect time of the season, right before the playoffs.

The Chicago Cubs’ character

Through the struggles and beyond, though, this Cubs team has shown character and a team-first attitude that has kept them in good spirits even when things could’ve easily drifted into bickering and finger pointing.

That attitude came to the surface after the Tucker and “PCA” offensive drought had been busted.

“He [Tucker] has shown me how to stay the course, as a ton of others have,” Crow-Armstrong said of his teammate. “But he was also the last person to come up and pat me on the butt before I went up for my last at-bat. That kind of gives me chills there. I’ve never been worried about Kyle. It’s just nice that the anticipation of that one swing was kind of there, so I felt a little bit freed up for him. That honestly probably contributed to me taking my fourth at-bat after not really doing anything.”

“We all go through hard times,” pitcher Matthew Boyd said of Tucker’s struggles after the right fielder had been benched for a mental “reset” a few games ago. “But that’s why there’s 26 of us in there. We pick each other up. Kyle will do what he needs to do. There’s not a worry in the world about him. He picked us up, at times, in the first half of this year. Let’s not forget that. Where we are this year is because of him.”

Any way you slice it, the Cubs are going to need Tucker and Crow-Armstrong if their playoff run is going to be anything other than a token appearance. Friday’s game gave hope that maybe both are ready to move on past their struggles.

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