Pete Crow-Armstrong was a member of the Mets for about 13 months.
He made plenty of friends in the organization, enjoyed his time and yet had not stepped foot at Citi Field — or even in New York City — until this week.
“I haven’t experienced anything like this,” the Cubs outfielder said from the visiting clubhouse this week in Queens. “It’s not weird. It’s just new and exciting.”
Crow-Armstrong made an impact against his former organization as his game-winning sacrifice fly in the fifth inning was the difference in the Cubs’ 1-0 win on Wednesday night.
Before he picked up the game-winning RBI in his fifth-inning at-bat, Crow-Armstrong swung and missed at a Joey Butto changeup, launching his bat down the first-base line where it got caught in the protective netting in a funny moment.
Crow-Armstrong was the 19th-overall pick of the 2020 draft but did not visit the Mets’ home, like so many draft picks do, because of the pandemic.
He played in no minor league games that season for the same reason, then debuted at Low-A St. Lucie in 2021, when he starred for six games before he needed season-ending shoulder surgery.
By the time he made it back to the field, he was a member of the Cubs.
The Mets mortgaged part of their future in an ill-fated deal for Javier Baez and Trevor Williams at the 2021 trade deadline, then watched Crow-Armstrong, now 22, shoot through Chicago’s system.
The defensively gifted center fielder is the Cubs’ best prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, and is trying to prove he can handle major league pitching and an everyday job.
Crow-Armstrong probably will always qualify as a what-could-have-been for the Mets, who got short-term production from both Baez and Williams but who paid for it.
Crow-Armstrong acknowledged he was looking forward to finally reaching Citi Field, but not to show the Mets what he had become: He wanted to catch up with the pals he had made.
Through instructional league play and work at the Mets’ facility in Port St. Lucie, Crow-Armstrong got to know prospects such as Mark Vientos, Brett Baty and Francisco Alvarez.
He has chatted with several on the field before games this week in a moment the crew had dreamed about.
That class of prospects has touched the majors, even if Crow-Amstrong is wearing a different jersey than expected.
“I’ve been looking forward to seeing my friends for a few years now, especially on a big-league field,” he said. “We talked about this day. … We had a lot of those [conversations].”
