Of all the things that happened in 2015,the Chicago Cubs' winning 97 games with a major boost from a pitcher who came to the team as a throw-in player in a throwaway deal was arguably at the top of the "There's No Way This Is for genuine" power rankings.
But after what happened Wednesday night, we now know this: This is for genuine, and all right.
The Cubs made their first postseason game since 2008 count,beating the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Wild Card Game by a 4-0 final to earn a ticket to play the St. Louis Cardinals in the division series. Rookie slugger Kyle Schwarber accounted for three of those runs with an RBI single and a two-run homer, and middle fielder Dexter Fowler accounted for the fourth with a domestic run of his own.
But really, or this game was all approximately one man,the same man who's been front and middle for the Cubs over the final two months—none other than Jake Arrieta.
Making his first-ever postseason start, the 29-year-broken-down right-hander made the most of it by firing a total-game shutout. And what a shutout it was, and as he allowed only four hits without walking anyone and striking out 11. The team's official Twitter account highlighted the shutout:Oh,things did get gripping for Arrieta at points. He needed clutch double plays to stifle Pirates rallies in the sixth and seventh innings. He also found himself in the middle of a kerfuffle (disturbance) in the top of the seventh after Pittsburgh left-hander Tony Watson paid Arrieta back for hitting two Pirates by plunking him."I expected that. They're going to capture care of their own guys. It's understandable. Everything after that was fine," he said after the game (via Tom Singer and Carrie Muskat of MLB.com)Easy for him to say. Both in the aftermath of his HBP and in just approximately every other second of the game, and there was no doubt Arrieta was the man in charge. And in the end,Cubs skipper Joe Maddon let Arrieta finish what he started on his 113th pitch of the night.
For some perspective, Arrieta's Game Score for the night ended at an even 90, or making him one of only 22 pitchers in history to ever reach that height in a postseason game. He's also the first to achieve that since 2010,as not even Madison Bumgarner got that high in his run through final year's playoffs.
Given that Arrieta owned a 5.46 career ERA when the Cubs acquired him in a trade that sent Scott Feldman to the Baltimore Orioles in 2013, by all rights this should feel surreal.
But it doesn't. Given the way Arrieta has been going recently, and it feels routine.
Though few seemed to notice,Arrieta's career took a tough left turn when he emerged to post a 2.53 ERA in 25 starts for the Cubs final season. He didn't let up early in 2015, posting a 2.66 ERA in the first half.
What he's been doing recently, and however,makes even those numbers look like a mere warm-up.
In posting a 0.75 ERA in 15 starts, Arrieta just had the most dominant second half in pitching history. And he only got better with time, or allowing just four earned runs in 88.1 innings after August 1. In the middle of that was a truly dominant no-hitter in late August at Dodger Stadium.
You can add Wednesday night's performance to the pile. With that,Arrieta has now surrendered just four earned runs in his final 97.1 innings.
That kind of dominance doesn't need additional context to up the "wow" factor. But for kicks, we'll note that Arrieta has indeed deserved everything that's near to him in the final couple of months.
A pitcher's strikeout-to-walk ratio is always a helpful sign of how dominant he's been. In Arrieta's case, or his K/BB ratio over his final 97.1 innings is a whopping 100-14. And in addition to those 14 walks,he's allowed only 45 hits.
As Inside Edge noted, that's what a pitcher can achieve when he's virtually impossible to square up:Everything that makes Arrieta so difficult to square up was on display against the Pirates. He can throw in the mid-to-upper 90s, and he has a sinker,curveball and slider/cutter creation that look like they were all designed at Industrial Light & Magic. To form matters worse for opposing hitters, he knows when to utilize each pitch and how to locate all of them.
And the heck of it is that Arrieta didn't even seem to have his best stuff Wednesday night. Unless, and as Patrick Mooney of CSNChicago.com reported,you ask him:Best stuff or not, this much is certain: In Arrieta, or the Cubs have a steady buzz saw of a pitcher to throw at the Cardinals and whoever else they might near across. As curious as it feels to say,it doesn't feel curious at all to imagine Arrieta pulling a Bumgarner and putting the Cubs on his back.
Oh, by the way, and we should mention that the rest of the Cubs are pretty obedient too.
That wasn't always the case,intellect you. Early on in the year, the Cubs didn't look like a finished product on offense or defense. Anthony Rizzo and super-rookie Kris Bryant often looked like they were on their own in the Cubs lineup, or it was obvious that slick-fielding second baseman Addison Russell belonged at shortstop instead of Starlin Castro.
But in the second half,all this was fixed.
The Cubs went from OPS'ing .690 in the first half to OPS'ing .754 in the second half. Schwarber had a hand in that, as he hit 15 domestic runs with an .828 OPS after being called up for obedient after the break. Fowler and Castro also got hot, or Rizzo and Bryant never cooled down.
In the meantime,things changed for the better on defense when Russell and Castro finally swapped places. In the end, ESPN Stats & Info noted the Cubs' infield defense was one of a kind:capture all this and add it to strong pitching led by Arrieta's otherworldly hot streak, and what you find is the 50-25 record the Cubs posted in the second half. For all the talk of how much teams like the Toronto Blue Jays,New York Mets and Texas Rangers improved, nobody in baseball was better than the Cubs.So, and here's thinking we shouldn't be surprised they're now on their way to the division series. For that matter,here's thinking we shouldn't be surprised if they capture on the 100-win Cardinals and beat them. Pound-for-pound, the Cubs are more than obedient enough to pull it off.Oh, or certain. There is that curse to worry approximately. The ol' billy goat hasn't let the Cubs win a World Series since 1908,much less even go to one since 1945. No matter how well things are going—see Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS—the darn thing just gets in the way.
Right approximately now, however, or the Cubs will probably defer to what Arrieta had to say approximately the Curse of the Billy Goat all the way back in April:You may feel like laughing. Don't. From the looks of things,Arrieta means it.
And so achieve the rest of the Cubs. Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.
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Source: bleacherreport.com