Chicago Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta has routinely summoned magic this summer with the flick of a wrist. As a surprise bonus, the prelude to the show is frequently as riveting as the show itself.
The anticipation mounts when Arrieta stares in for the catcher's sign, with a look of grim foreboding. As his eyes blaze beneath a cap brim flatter than the Texas plains, you half expect a tumbleweed to go rolling across the infield. On the rugged-hero stoicism scale, think Clint Eastwood in "Unforgiven."
Jim Richardson, the Baltimore Orioles scout who signed Arrieta out of Texas Christian University eight years ago, saw that relentless focus on display long before Arrieta grew a beard and embraced the "late bloomer" tag at age 28. Richardson has driven past a lot of mesquite and buffalograss through the years in search of power bats and big arms, so a specific image springs to mind.
"It's kind of like those old gunfighters in those westerns," Richardson said. "There's a confidence in his eyes. He's transmitting something to the hitter, like, 'Hey, I'm not afraid of you, but you better be afraid of me.' It's always been there."
During a recent road trip, Arrieta sat in the visiting dugout at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia and pondered the scouting report of the longtime talent evaluator.
"I like that," he said.
Richardson isn't alone in his assessment. Arrieta's wife, Brittany, recently expressed a similar sentiment about his mound countenance, although it wasn't quite as fraught with O.K. Corral imagery.
"She looked at different photos from several of my starts, and then she looked at me and said, 'You're scary out there,'" Arrieta said. "I told her, 'It's a different mindset.' The aggression out there is completely opposite how I am off the field. Something pretty much takes over in a competitive battle against the best players in the world. That's what I feel is necessary to be great, for me."
It's impossible for Arrieta to stand head-and-shoulders above the pitching pack this season when Los Angeles Dodgers twin towers Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw are doing such wondrous things every five days. But with his monumental second-half run, he might have a forehead lead over Greinke and two earlobes on Kershaw in the National League Cy Young Award race.
The most noteworthy moment of Arrieta's season came on Aug. 30 at Dodger Stadium, when he threw the first no-hitter by a Cubs starter since Carlos Zambrano in 2008. By punching out Justin Turner, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley to close it out, Arrieta joined San Francisco's Chris Heston as the second pitcher this season to conclude a no-no by striking out the side in the ninth inning. The only other pitcher who can say that is Sandy Koufax, who whiffed the final six hitters to seal his perfect game against the Cubs in 1965.
Shortly thereafter, Arrieta took the podium in a pair of jammies and shared a bedtime story with the media before hopping on a charter flight in conjunction with Cubs manager Joe Maddon's "onesies" trip.
When Arrieta isn't partaking in fun team rituals, he's making the Elias Sports Bureau folks scurry for historical comparisons. He recently joined Orval Overall and Ferguson Jenkins as the third Cubs pitcher since 1900 to register 20 wins and 200 strikeouts in a season, and logged 18 straight quality starts to surpass the Cubs franchise record of 17 set by Lon Warneke in 1933.
In August, Arrieta became the first pitcher to go 6-0 with a sub-0.75 ERA in a single calendar month since Jim Kaat of the 1974 Chicago White Sox achieved the feat. And during one mind-bending stretch, he joined Bob Gibson of the 1968 St. Louis Cardinals as the second pitcher in 100 years to go 8-0 with a sub-0.50 ERA in an eight-start span.
Astonishingly, Greinke could finish as Cy Young runner-up despite a 1.68 ERA, which would be the fourth best in baseball since the start of divisional play in 1969. Only Dwight Gooden (1.53 ERA in 1985) and Greg Maddux (1.56 in 1994 and 1.63 in 1995) have done better. Kershaw, with his garden-variety 2.16 ERA, 0.89 WHIP and 294 strikeouts, appears to be the laggard in the conversation.
The current state of affairs comes as no surprise to Cubs catcher David Ross, who ranked Arrieta and White Sox lefty Chris Sale as the two nastiest pitchers he faced a year ago during his time in Boston.
"I look back at this season and I think, 'This guy is single-handedly carrying us to the playoffs,'" Ross said. "He's pitching in the best division in baseball and facing teams that have been in a playoff atmosphere, and he's dominating them.
"Calling a game for him is so easy. It's like reaching into a grab bag and pulling out a pitch. It's so good, you know it's probably going to work."
Escape from Baltimore
With his breakout performance in 2015, Arrieta joins a proud tradition of hard-throwing Texas right-handers who've made hay in the big leagues. Nolan Ryan passed the torch to Roger Clemens, who gave way to Josh Beckett, who preceded Arrieta, Corey Kluber, Homer Bailey and many others who grew up wanting to be Ryan and Clemens.
The Cincinnati Reds selected Arrieta out of Plano East High School in the 31st round of the 2004 draft, but he opted to attend Weatherford College in Texas and re-enter the draft. After Milwaukee selected him in the 26th round in 2005, Arrieta headed to TCU to play for coach Jim Schlossnagle and the Horned Frogs.
Once his body began to fill out, Arrieta's fastball spiked from 88-90 to 93-97 mph. He complemented the heat with a hard curve and an occasional slider, and threw the ball past college competition with such ease that he never needed to incorporate a changeup into the mix.
All the raw materials for success were in place. But when Arrieta had a disappointing junior year for the Horned Frogs, it raised some yellow caution flags about him as a prospect.
When then-Baltimore scouting director Joe Jordan decided to take the plunge in the fifth round of the 2007 draft, Richardson felt a tinge of excitement mixed with uncertainty. Like most players under the Scott Boras amateur umbrella, Arrieta was a mystery man to interested teams. Unlike most draft advisers -- who engage in lots of back-channel talk as a prelude to pre-draft arrangements -- Boras puts his clients in witness protection and gives clubs no inkling of their price points or their intentions.
When the Orioles reached out and tried to determine what it would take to sign Arrieta, "it was crickets," according to Richardson. "On draft day Joe walks back into the room, and says, we're taking Arrieta if he's still there," Richardson said. "I said, 'Joe, I haven't been able to get anybody to return a phone call on signability.' Joe just looked at me and said, 'Do you not want him?' And I said, 'Yes, I just don't know what the money is.' Looking back, I have to give Joe a lot of credit. For Jake to still be there in the fifth round, that was lucky for us."
The Orioles selected Arrieta 159th overall and paid him a well-above-slot $1.1 million bonus. Then the hype began. In 2009, Baseball America ranked Chris Tillman, Brian Matusz and Arrieta as the franchise's Nos. 2-3-4 prospects behind catcher Matt Wieters, and observed, "The Orioles will be happy if they can build their future rotation around the trio."
Arrieta portended greatness in bits, pieces and tantalizing glimpses during his time in Baltimore. His fastball jumped, his breaking ball snapped and scouts routinely would peer over their sunglasses after two innings and observe that he had "no-hit stuff." Then Arrieta would come out and walk the leadoff man, lose his focus and quickly unravel. Two hours later, he would stand at his locker stall in front of reporters and gingerly sift through the wreckage. Over time, it had become increasingly apparent that he was not going to reach his ceiling in Charm City.
"I liked Jake as a teammate and I liked him as a person, but he needed a change of scenery here," said Orioles outfielder Adam Jones. "Sometimes you just need a change of scenery to go figure it out."
How significantly had Arrieta's star faded by the end of his run with the O's? When the Cubs sent Scott Feldman and Steve Clevenger to Baltimore in a July 2013 trade for Arrieta and Pedro Strop, the ESPN.com headline read, "Scott Feldman traded to Orioles."
Multiple sources said that Arrieta's problems in Baltimore stemmed in part from a strained relationship with former Orioles pitching coach Rick Adair, an old-school type who was not particularly receptive to young pitchers with free-thinking orientations. "Rick was hard on young pitchers," said one current Orioles player who declined to be named.
Another person familiar with the situation referred to Adair as a "my-way-or-the-highway guy with a cookie-cutter approach" that didn't resonate with Arrieta. Pitcher and pupil butted heads over hand positioning and numerous other subtleties of the craft.
In hindsight, Arrieta declines to single out Adair for his travails with the Orioles. But he acknowledges that his mind was cluttered with too much unproductive advice in Baltimore. He wasn't unlike dozens of other prospects who wind up feeling stifled and confused when an organization spends too much time dictating and not enough time trying to find a middle ground.
"It's not like a pity-me kind of thing," Arrieta said. "There are players in those type of situations every day, in the minors and at the big league level, whose careers are set back because of different individual circumstances.
"It's been that way forever, unfortunately. Maybe it's based on an overload of information or a constant focus on the wrong things. It's hard to have success here in the major leagues, let alone consistent success, if you're worried about variables that you cannot control."
Free thinker
Cubs pitching coach Chris Bosio and others in the organization have received a lot of credit for allowing Arrieta to go back to square one and get on the right path. He's back to throwing with his natural cross-body delivery and slightly lower arm angle and making life hell on hitters with his deception.
Arrieta also has a touch of the tinkerer in him. He's developed a slider/cutter hybrid since his arrival in the big leagues, and he's thrown it about 30 percent of the time this season and held opponents to a .186 average against the pitch.
Beyond the obvious changes, Arrieta has continued to explore different training methods and technological advances. If Ross and fellow catcher Miguel Montero spot a hole in a hitter's swing and convey the news to Arrieta, chances are he's already spotted it on video.
"Jake has a very strong constitution and a belief structure that he's going to get better every day," said Boras. "The fit between him and the Cubs is a product of a team understanding a person, more so than what they've done with him physically. They've encouraged him to grow. The Cubs let Jake be Jake."
Arrieta's commitment and work ethic are evident in his regular between-starts regimen. Each new profile of Arrieta duly notes his fondness for Pilates, TRX training, foam rolling and kale juice.
Meanwhile, the embodiment of the new-age baseball player/physical specimen seems baffled that his constant quest for an edge should brand him as novel in some way.
"This is the highest level of professional sports," Arrieta said. "Why wouldn't you put all your time and energy into being as strong and healthy and mobile and flexible and explosive as you can? It's part of my lifestyle, so it's kind of an easy thing for me to do."
Beyond the diet and nutrition lessons and intricacies of navigating an opposing lineup, the biggest lesson Arrieta has embraced during his journey can't be measured by his SIERA or his body fat percentage.
"I've learned to be my own coach and trust my gut, instead of trusting everybody I come in contact with," he said. "I knew for a long time I could pitch my way and have success, but it was hard to do that. You want to be coachable and try to listen and learn from people, but everybody normally doesn't have all the information. Sometimes you have to be your own coach and try to figure it out on your own."
Arrieta has grown off the field as well, through parenthood and its smorgasbord of love, laughs and unexpected adventures. Jake and Brittany Arrieta have two children, 3-year-old son Cooper and 21-month-old daughter Palmer, and he routinely shares slices of his family life on social media.
Thank you @Cubs for a great ceremony and a big time watch, Cooper keeps trying to snag it from me 😆 pic.twitter.com/hchubRa19d
— Jake Arrieta (@JArrieta34) September 1, 2015Judging from the Twitter narrative, Cooper is quite the inquisitive and discerning little man. One of Arrieta's favorite father-son interactions occurred during a quiet family evening at home in the offseason.
"It was late at night, and Palmer was cranky and Cooper was tired and he was watching TV," Arrieta said. "Palmer walked up to him and just hit him in the forehead twice. So Cooper walked over to me and Brittany and said, 'Maybe we can donate her.' We looked at each other and tried not to burst into laughter. Then I politely explained to him, 'That's not an option.'"
Soon enough, Cooper will learn from watching his dad that failure and mediocrity aren't options, and all of life's obstacles can be overcome through a strong internal compass. Ask Jake Arrieta why he's so partial to wearing that flat cap brim, and he says it's because it allows him to see the field of play so clearly, without obstruction. He can also see a bright future beckoning, and it's getting more promising by the day.