Arrieta rejoins Cubs healthy seeking to ‘prove something’ initially appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
For all of the doubters on the market, one factor factors to upside as Jake Arrieta rejoins the Cubs in 2021. He’s coming into the season wholesome after varied illnesses derailed his three seasons with the Phillies.
“I feel I’ve obtained fairly a bit left to supply on this recreation,” Arrieta instructed reporters over Zoom on Saturday.
Arrieta handled accidents every of his three seasons in Philadelphia. He pitched with a torn left meniscus for a big portion of 2018, getting it surgically repaired the next January. After a promising first half (3.23 ERA, 18 begins), his numbers dipped after the All-Star break (5.04 ERA, 13 begins).
In 2019, the right-hander pitched by way of a bone spur for a lot of the season. The harm flared up that yr after eight years of no points following an August 2011 surgical procedure. He underwent surgical procedure once more in August 2019, lacking the ultimate two months and ending with a 4.64 ERA in 24 begins.
Final season, a hamstring pressure put him on the shelf for the ultimate two weeks of September, following a strong three-start stretch (3.00 ERA).
“However having stated that, I did not carry out the way in which I used to be able to,” he stated.
Arrieta famous these bodily setbacks brought on unintentional variations in his supply and mechanics. His arm slot wasn’t the place it wanted to be and his offspeed pitches didn’t have the their regular break or late life.
Arrieta is wholesome now and has been working throughout the Cubs pitching infrastructure to right these points. He cited Mike Borzello, the Cubs assistant pitching, catching and technique coach, as somebody who texts him usually with any perception or info that would assist.
It was inside that infrastructure that Arrieta blossomed right into a Cy Younger Award winner following a commerce from Baltimore in 2013. The precise-hander, who turns 35 in March, is clearly at a special stage in his profession at this level. He isn’t the pitcher who can dial up his fastball to the upper-90s: “That is simply sort of the pure development of your profession,” he stated.
Nonetheless, Arrieta feels his capacity to carry out at the same stage as his first Cubs tenure remains to be there.
“My supply ought to be and would be the similar” he stated. “We’re making some changes there and we have been watching numerous video to guarantee that that is doable. And I feel if I can get that supply again to the place it was, I feel the outcomes might be very near the place they had been in ’15, ’16 and ‘17.”
Whereas it is likely to be unfair to anticipate him to match that three-year manufacturing, Arrieta’s dominant first run on the North Facet doesn’t imply he feels he has nothing left to show.
“I feel all people at this stage, no matter the place they’re at of their profession, try to show one thing. It may not be to 1 individual, it may very well be to themselves, it may very well be to individuals of their previous that did not assume that they had been able to acting at this stage or a former group, fill within the clean.
“I feel annually has its personal form of challenges and various things which have completely different expectations, each personally and as a corporation, as a crew,” he stated. “So there’s all the time issues to show. Not that that is in a detrimental manner, it is actually simply to show that I am nonetheless able to acting at a excessive stage, the extent that I anticipate to carry out at.
“I’ve lots within the tank, I’ve lots to nonetheless accomplish on this recreation. And I am excited that that is going to occur on this Cubs uniform once more.”
For a Cubs rotation that confronted important upheaval this winter, an efficient Arrieta might go a good distance.
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