In 2015 and early 2016, whenever Jake Arrieta took over the ball for the Chicago Cubs, you knew how the game would go. Odds were that the Cubs would win and the bearded right-hander would do something impressive, whether it was shooting a no-hitter or simply splitting the opposing team’s lineup from top to bottom.
There have been nearly 30 matches where Arrieta’s only loss has been in the form of a Cole Hamels no-hitter at Wrigley. That’s right, it took baseball history for the 2015 NL Cy Young Award winner to come out on the wrong end of a decision.
From June 21, 2015 to June 1, 2016, Arrieta was from another world—she may have put together the most impressive run we’ve ever seen by a starting pitcher. 1.13 squeezed it while running 30 games sounds like a typo, or maybe something you’ve thrown into a video game playing rookie when you know full well your skills are far superior on such a low difficulty.
As the 2015 season went on, Arrieta seemed to be getting stronger. The forward of that run who ran from 30 starts, posted a 0.86 ERA over nearly 150 innings of work to finish the regular season, and carried an insane amount of momentum into the 2015 NL Wild Card Game at PNC Park.
All he did there was solidify his budding legacy, telling a Pirates fan on Twitter that no matter what the Pittsburgh fans told themselves, “It doesn’t matter,” he promptly followed it up with a 113-pitch, 11-strikeout complete game shutout. from 98 wins. While the Cubs fell short in their quest for a pennant, Arrieta brought home the Senior Circuit’s top pitching equipment and all eyes were on him heading into 2016.
Early in the year, it was much the same as a former TCU pitcher: From Opening Day through June 22, 2016, Action to a 1.74 ERA in 15 starts, holding opponents to a laughably low 0.498 OPS over that span. Down the stretch, opposing hitters could finally breathe a sigh of relief as Arrieta finally looked human again — and in his final regular season start of 2016, he was gutted for seven runs in a loss to Pittsburgh on the road.
While Kyle Hendricks and Jon Lester tend to be the big focus, especially the former, when it comes to big post-season promotions, Arrieta has played an important role as well. Although Chicago dropped two of his four starts, including one each in the NLDS against the Giants and the NLCS against the Dodgers, when the Cubs’ backs were on the wall, he turned him in.
After dropping Game 1 in Cleveland, Arrieta helped lead the Cubs to a much needed win in Game 2, finishing sixth at Progressive Field and allowing only one run, striking out six and walking three. He had a hit in the sixth, giving him the longest showing without a World Series hit since then 1969for nearly 50 years.
In a must-win Game 6, the Cubs’ bats poured against Indians outfielder Josh Tomlin, hanging a half-dozen right-handed runs in support of Arrieta, who hit nine while again grounding in the sixth. Of course, Chicago won the game and forced a winner-takes-all Game 7 – and we all know how that ended up.
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During those two years, Arrieta was as close to a sure thing as we’ve seen in decades — and while his second North Side stint was largely forgotten, he snuffed out his team in a mid-decade heyday. Running is something that time will definitely not erase.