Somewhere in Baltimore, heads bowed again in sad resignation when Jake Arrieta picked up his 20th win of the season for the Chicago Cubs.
Sad because Arrieta was once one of theirs, a top Orioles prospect who arrived in the big leagues in 2010 as part of a group of young pitchers nicknamed the “Cavalry” by then-manager Dave Trembley.
It did not quite work out for the Orioles, but the Cubs sure do feel rescued. The 29-year-old right-hander has ascended to stardom in Chicago, fittingly earning another victory of the season with a three-hit shutout this week.
Arrieta’s 1.88 earned run average, 220 strikeouts and 0.90 walks-hits per innings pitched put him in elite company with the Los Angeles Dodgers duo of Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. They are by far the three best starters in the National League this season, locked in an epic battle for the Cy Young Award.
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Arrieta is the first one to 20 wins, and he boasts a Cubs franchise record of 18 consecutive “quality starts”, a quaint, three-decades-old measuring stick (six or more innings, three or fewer runs) that has been largely swept away by a tsunami of advanced metrics.
By any measure, though, Arrieta has blossomed into the Cubs’ ace and a nightmare for opposing hitters.
His manager, Joe Maddon, has taken to comparing Arrieta’s magical 2015 season to his own “favourite pitcher of all-time”.
“It’s total domination of the other team,” Maddon told MLB.com. “It is Bob Gibson-esque.”
In Baltimore, though, it was more flop-esque. Arrieta was known for his mid-90s fastball, the zany movement on his pitches and his inability to locate them effectively.
His ERA during three-and-a-half seasons in Baltimore rose from 4.66 to 5.05 to 6.20 to 7.23 midway through 2013, when the Orioles gave up on him.
He went to the Cubs, along with reliever Pedro Strop, for a dependable right-hander, Scott Feldman, who now plays for the Houston Astros.
If there is anything to the notion that some players just need a change of scenery, then Arrieta is a classic case.
He finished 2013 with a 3.66 ERA for the Cubs, dropped it to 2.53 last year and raised himself to, perhaps, Gibson-esque levels this season.
When explanations are demanded, Arrieta cites his maturity as a pitcher and the simple practice of repeating his delivery. He points to mechanical adjustments on his breaking ball.
He told USA Today that he throws his cut fastball and his slider with the same grip, but he slows the velocity on the slider to make it drop more when he faces left-handed batters.
Pitching coach Chris Bosio told CSNChicago.com the Cubs let pitchers “do their thing, be themselves”, mostly collaborating over approaches to opposing hitters.
Whatever it is, Arrieta has married his electric stuff to the strike zone.
Teammate Jon Lester, the projected ace who now plays the sidekick instead, told ESPN.com that Arrieta’s ability to make the ball move so dramatically is “amazing”.
Lester said: “A lot of guys who can do that don’t have the best command because the ball is moving all over the place.”
With the Cubs seemingly destined to make the postseason as a wild-card team, it is Arrieta who will be counted on to take charge in that one-game, elimination challenge.
In Baltimore, it will still hurt to watch.
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