[adinserter block=”1″]I’d say that Jake Arrieta pitching at Wrigley Field has become must-watch baseball, but, then, Jake Arrieta pitching anywhere has been must-watch baseball for going on two years now.
Yesterday, Arrieta was absolutely masterful, carving up Rockies hitters for eight scoreless innings, bringing his scoreless streak at home to 48.2 innings.
Arrieta commanded as well as ever, and notched eight strikeouts in the process. If you missed any of it, enjoy, because there are a lot of ugly swings in here:
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It was interesting to see how Arrieta’s pitch mix worked through the game. It became clear early on that his slider/cutter pitch (comes in harder than a typical slider, has more lateral break than a typical cutter) was really on point, and he and David Ross leaned on it heavily.[adinserter block=”2″]
Per Brooks, Arrieta threw that pitch 26 times yesterday, and a whopping 15 of those times the pitch resulted in a strike with the ball not put in play (68.2%). Heck, even his two-seamer was close to doing the same work, getting a strike without a ball in play 57.8% of the time. Those are ridiculous numbers for your primary two pitches in a given game where you went eight innings.
Arrieta also got a lofty 15 whiffs on the day.
I also found it interesting that Arrieta threw only one changeup the entire game – one that floated too high to Carlos Gonzalez, and he blooped it into left for a hit. When you’re dominating with your two-seamer and slider/cutter, working in the occasional four-seamer and curveball, I guess it’s OK if that fifth pitch isn’t going to work for you on a given day. (*insert winky or smiley or kissy face emoji*)
After the dominant performance, Arrieta’s ERA dropped to 1.23, or almost a half-run lower than his hilariously-low 1.77 mark from last year. Sure, that 98.6% left-on base percentage is proooooobably going to drop quite a bit, but it’s still fun to see for now.