Chicago Cubs' Arrieta edges closer to 20 wins
The toughest thing Jake Arrieta of 2016 has to compete against is Jake Arrieta of 2015.
His Cy Young season of a year ago featured dominance of historic proportions that would be hard to duplicate by any pitcher.
Even though Arrieta's numbers this year aren't as eye-popping as they were a year ago, they're still pretty good.
And in case you hadn't noticed, Arrieta stands a decent chance of winning 20 games for the second year in a row.
That would make him the first Chicago Cubs pitchers to post successive 20-victory seasons since Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins reeled off six in a row from 1967-72.
Arrieta (16-5) started Tuesday night's 5-3 victory at San Diego and walked the first batter he faced, mirroring recent troubles. But he got out of the inning without any damage.
He finished his night going 8 shutout innings, allowing only 2 hits. He also had 6 strikeouts while walking three.
The Cubs' offense got rolling with Kris Bryant's 33rd home run, a solo shot in the third inning.
Ben Zobrist drove in Bryant with a double in the fifth to make it 2-0. Addison Russell's 19th homer, a 2-run shot, made it 4-0 later in the inning.
Bryant's sacrifice fly in the sixth scored Arrieta, who had tripled, to complete the Cubs' scoring.
San Diego scored 3 runs off reliever Felix Pena in the ninth before closer Aroldis Chapman came on to pick up the save for Arrieta.
Last season, Arrieta went 22-6 with a 1.77 ERA and a WHIP of 0.86. His wins above replacement (WAR) of 7.3 was second only to that of Clayton Kershaw's 8.6.
Heading into Tuesday, Arrieta was 15-5 with a 2.75 ERA and a WHIP of 1.06. His WAR of 3.3 was eighth in the National League and best among Cubs starting pitchers, outpacing Kyle Hendricks (3.0), Jon Lester (2.9) and John Lackey (2.8).
There are good reasons Arrieta hasn't "looked" or "felt" as dominant as he was last year. Much of it deals with command and control of his pitches.
Arrieta walked all of 48 batters last season in 229 innings. Entering Tuesday he had walked 59 in 153⅔ innings. His walks percentage had risen from 5.5 in 2015 to 9.5 heading into Tuesday, and his walks-per-9-innings went from 1.89 to 3.45.
On top of that, opposing batters are swinging at 5 percent fewer balls out of the strike zone against Arrieta compared with last season.
Arrieta walked 7 in 5⅔ innings in last Thursday's 9-6 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field.
"Jake, last game out, had a little bit of a tough time with the command," Cubs manager Joe Maddon said on his WSCR 670-AM radio pregame show. "I see it on the side."
"Outside of that, everything is really, really good."
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