Cubs Live
The 2017 Chicago Cubs season is officially over, and it was a season to remember. From being extremely mediocre for the first half of the season, to a surprise acquisition of Jose Quintana during the All-Star break, to overcoming a 5.5 game deficit to win the NL Central for the second year in a row and making it to the NLCS for the third consecutive year, we won’t forget this season anytime soon. Barring any trades in the offseason, which very well could be occurring, our everyday core of young players will be back and ready to compete for a third straight NL Central title. However, of the biggest pieces of this team for the past four seasons is probably not coming back and I just want to take this time to relive some of his greatest moments while thanking him for his heroics. Jake Arrieta, this is for you.
Thank you, Jake Arrieta. Thank you for coming over in 2013 and immediately being a solid pitcher. Once 2014 came, your potential started to shine as you posted a 10-5 record and 2.53 ERA on a 73-89 Cubs team. Starlin Castro, the rise of Anthony Rizzo and the arrival of Jorge Soler and Javier Baez were reasons to be excited about the Cubs that season, but you were easily the best part of that entire season. You were four outs away from tossing a no-hitter in Fenway Park and it was clear that you were going to eventually get the no hitter you deserve. 2015 arrived with great expectations for the north side. Rizzo and Castro were already All-Stars, Jon Lester inked a 6-year contract with the Cubs, and young prospects like Kris Bryant, Addison Russel and Kyle Schwarber were all on the rise. Once again, you were the best part of that season—especially the second half. What you did the second half of the season was unlike anything I’ve ever seen and probably ever will see. You were virtually unhittable, posting a 0.75 second-half ERA, the lowest in the history of professional baseball. Opposing hitters put up a pitiful .148/.204/.205 in the 107 1/3 innings you tossed after the All-Star break and the only game you lost was a 1-0 defeat to the Phillies July 25th, in which the Cubs were no-hit. If the Cubs scored an early run, I automatically felt comfortable about the outcome of the game. The only way you could get out-pitched is if someone threw a no-hitter, but once again, we all knew that was coming. August 30th, on Sunday night baseball versus the Dodgers, you did it. It was the moment you had coming and all but cemented yourself as the Cy Young frontrunner over Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. During the second half of 2015, teams were getting baptized at the Church of Jake every five days and #JakeDay became a weekly celebration and there was nothing anybody can do about it—ask the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 2015 NL Wildcard was an electric game. Schwarber hit a ball into the Alleghany River and you pitched a complete game shutout, but my favorite memory from that night came in the 7th inning. You just got hit by a pitch, which was a clear retaliation for some of the events that occurred during the game. Then, you stole second base. A starting pitcher, need I remind you, stole second base immediately after getting hit by a pitch in a do-or-die game. It was glorious and one of the coolest thing I’ve seen an athlete do given the circumstances. You came back down to Earth over the next two seasons, but you still had incredible moments. Thank you for throwing a no-hitter on my 21st birthday, that was a very generous gift from you. You hit a three-run home run off Madison Bumgarner in the NLDS and collected two victories in the World Series. You always seemed to be at your best when we needed it most, and you proved it in your last start of 2017. On what very well might be the last #JakeDay I celebrate, you pitched 6 2/3 innings of one-run baseball while striking out nine in an elimination game. It was a perfect exclamation point on a phenomenal four-year run.
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Kyle MalzhanFounder who is an aspiring journalist who covers the Chicago Cubs daily. Archives
April 2020
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