Everyone admits it. 2015 on the North side of Chicago was special, in a way 2016 won’t ever be able to match. After a first half in which the Cubs saw their future suddenly become their reality on the field each night, they simultaneously experienced the emergence of their new ace, Jake Arrieta. In 2015, […]
Tag: Jake Arrieta
Game 120 Recap: Cubs 9 Brewers 6
These are the afternoons when Wrigley decides to smile on the hitters and does so indiscriminately. Uniform color and allegiances don’t matter. All the runs will be scored when the ball carries over the wall or finds the right spot deep in the recesses of the outfield. Wrigley smiled the brightest on Kris Bryant today, […]
Game 114 Recap: Cubs 13 Cardinals 2
I suppose that if there are statement losses, then this must have been a very big statement win. Last night’s game ended on a bit of a controversial note with the fourth ball that walked in the winning run, and all of that came after the pitch that probably ended Matt Holliday’s season. So today felt […]
Game 109 Recap: Cubs 4 Athletics 0
If the second half of Jake Arrieta’s 2015 season was a prolonged look at what the near-perfect pitcher might look like, this afternoon’s game was a throwback in more than just the uniforms. Today, Arrieta gave an eight inning glimpse at the kind of work he did on the mound at about this time a […]
Skill, Not Luck: Jake Arrieta Is Struggling Edition
When I wrote of Jake Arrieta, the poet, I wrote of a man opening to us a window unto stories told and retold, a narrative through line from generations past to today. Since, that window has closed slightly. Arrieta has struggled recently, and has looked decidedly human. He’s not bad—far from it. After all, NL […]
The Rest of the Way: The Pitchers
Last week, I took a little liberty with statistical definitions and imagined what each member of the Cubs offense would slash the rest of the way if, at the end of the season, they were to hit their PECOTA projections and career averages. What did we learn from that exercise? For one, despite the name […]
Game 45 Recap: Cubs 9 Cardinals 8
In a divisional rivalry that has been rife with intrigue, particularly since last fall, the last game of this week’s series was bound not to go out with a whimper. This afternoon’s dogfight between the Cubs and Cardinals looked a lot more like what we might expect between these two teams later in the season. Not […]
The Sustainability of Jason Hammel’s Early Success
In nearly any other year, more of the space here at BP Wrigleyville would be devoted to lauding the early success of Jason Hammel, who, in some ways, has outshone his colleagues in the starting rotation, but we are in the midst of a pitching showcase from Jake Arrieta that is otherworldly, so the work of […]
Series Preview: Cubs vs. Brewers, April 26-28
It’s already been a very eventful month for the Cubs, so much so that it might be hard to believe that it’s still only April. Sitting at 14-5, and firmly in first place in the NL Central division, the Cubs will now see their division rivals from Milwaukee for the first time this season. The Brewers […]
Fueled By Doubt, Arrieta Ascends
At age 27, Jake Arrieta was so wracked with self doubt about the direction of his career that he considered going into sales. Think about that. The Cubs could’ve missed out on the greatest hope for breaking their championship drought because he was busy pretending that talking up the Xerox X792D to OfficeMax middle managers […]