Imrem: It can't be good that The Body needed a rest

Whew, that was becoming uncomfortable the other night.

The score of baseball's All-Star Game was close enough that extra innings were a possibility.

You know what that meant: Jake Arrieta might have had to - yikes! - pitch an inning.

OK, excuse the sarcastic tone. But a major-league pitcher fearing an inning of work in July can't be a positive for his team.

Maybe you caught a glimpse of Arrieta suiting down for "The Body" issue of ESPN The Magazine.

My goodness, I have more fat in one eyelash than this finely tuned athlete has in his entire 225-pound body.

The Chicago Cubs ace looks like meteors would clank off him and like his odometer would hit a million miles before he'd have to go in for even an oil change.

Yet Arrieta said early this week that he was tired and would rather rest than pitch in the All-Star Game.

Hmmm.

Arrieta's proclamation means something for the Cubs - something either bad or not good - but exactly what isn't clear.

Is Arrieta's arm dead? Is it injured? Does he need one of those My Pillows to get a good night's sleep?

In all fairness to Arrieta, he did add that he would pitch in the All-Star Game if necessary … which fortunately it wasn't.

Look, pitchers are fragile. The long season can wear on their minds and the mounting innings can tear on their moneymaker.

In Arrieta's case, a lot has been thrust upon him, some of it by his own ego, pride and competitive nature.

Jake Arrieta wants to be the man and maybe he's finding out that being the man ain't easy.

Whatever is going on with Arrieta, he hasn't been the pitcher he was while compiling remarkable statistics late last season and early this season.

Arrieta has been only very good the past 10 starts or so, reverting from the ace of aces to "merely" a No. 1 starter.

The question is whether very good is good enough to carry the Cubs to where they want to go: the World Series for the first time in 71 years and their first championship in 108 years.

For a long time, the Cubs could count on Arrieta to give them an outing in which he needed little support. They won just about every time he took the ball. They could take him for granted without saying so.

Lately, Arrieta slumped and the Cubs slumped, too, not a healthy coincidence for a team with lofty aspirations.

Arrieta hasn't been alone in retreating. Jon Lester, John Lackey and Jason Hammel - lining up behind him in the rotation - suffered their own lapses.

Each of those pitchers rank in age between Arrieta's 30 and Lackey's 37, the time in a career when the innings, games and years often show their toll.

The four of them, along with No. 5 starter Kyle Hendricks, were the reason the Cubs started the season with a 47-20 record.

Now the offense that averaged 6 runs per game for a couple of months predictably backed off that pace as dramatically as the pitching did its pace.

If Arrieta's name now is followed by a question mark instead of an exclamation point, his teammates will have to pick him up rather than the other way around.

Are they good enough to do so?

The Cubs would rather not have to find out.

Instead, they'd like Jake Arrieta to go back to being "The Body" instead of the pitcher who feels he needs to rest.

mimrem@dailyherald.com