There were moments last night that Jake Arrieta didn’t look at his best, and he got some help from the defense behind him, but still. That’s a very good Giants lineup that did a whole lot of bupkis against a who said after the game that he came out with his “B stuff” (Cubs.com).
When a pitcher’s “B stuff” is enough to do what Arrieta did to a good lineup, then you know that pitcher is very special (regardless of whether he’s “the best” in the game).
Sure enough, Arrieta generated only 10 whiffs in the game, which is low for him (good for most), but it’s hard to argue with the line: 7 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 2 BB, 8 K. The 1.29 ERA he posted for the game was identical to the season mark with which he entered the game.[adinserter block=”1″]
On the season, Arrieta’s FIP stands at 2.50 and his xFIP is 3.04. His 1.9 accumulated WAR is 7th best in baseball, behind only Clayton Kershaw, Jose Quintana, Chris Sale, Johnny Cueto (Cubs are fortunate to miss him this series), Noah Syndergaard, and Stephen Strasburg. Interestingly, he’s also four spots ahead of Jeff Samardzija, the other Giants starter the Cubs miss in this series.
The highlights from last night’s performance:
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[adinserter block=”2″]Did you catch the nasty changeup in there? It came on the 4th inning strikeout looking to Hunter Pence – it was an 89mph change with so much movement that it started off the plate outside and wound up just about dead center. No wonder Arrieta can’t always rely on his changeup when it’s got that much nasty movement.
He also did this with it one time in the middle of a count:
https://vine.co/v/iEJ1m22wOQq
No freaking chance.