The piece previewed here, written by Baseball Prospectus’s Matt Trueblood, forms part of the main site’s comprehensive coverage of the playoffs, “Playoff Prospectus.” Additional Game Three coverage, exclusive to BP Wrigleyville, can be found here, under the name “Second City October”
It wasn’t really a bad pitch that Jake Arrieta threw to Yasmani Grandal. He’d certainly thrown worse. When Arrieta cut loose a 3-2 sinker at 93 miles per hour in the bottom of the fourth inning on Tuesday night in Los Angeles, the Dodgers already led the Cubs 1-0, thanks to a hanging slider righteously thwacked for an RBI single by Corey Seager the inning before.
On the fateful full-count pitch, Arrieta appeared to essentially hit his spot, a hair below Grandal’s knees. Either Grandal knew it was coming, or he adjusted brilliantly. With a low, long stride and a vicious uppercut, he assaulted the pitch, launching it easily out of the park to the right of dead center field. The Dodgers would wind up winning 6-0, but the drive that made it 3-0 essentially punched out the Cubs in Game 3.
In the eternity spent on that homer—the sheer hang time of the majestic blast, the outburst of emotion from Grandal, the coursing jubilation of the fans and the players in the home dugout, and the difficulty Arrieta had in really collecting himself—there was ample time to reflect on the way that single plate appearance captured Arrieta’s season in microcosm. In 2015, he was one of the best pitchers in baseball. He got there in a strange sort of way, though. There were a lot of deep counts, but hardly any of them turned out to be fruitful. Batters seemed perpetually off balance, and so unable to hit Arrieta even when he seemed to be on the ropes.
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Lead photo courtesy Gary A. Vasquez—USA Today Sports.