Arrieta allowed two runs on just four hits over six innings in the Cubs’ 4-2 win in Detroit.
DETROIT – What the Cubs got from Jake Arrieta in his return to the mound on Friday was the best they could have hoped for. After missing his last start as he recovered from a cut on his right thumb, the veteran starter showed no ill effects from the time away.
Arrieta has been great for the Cubs in seven starts, but the 35-year-old right-hander turned in one of his best starts of the season in the Cubs’ 4-2 victory over the Tigers.
“Jake did a great job,” manager David Ross said. “I thought he threw great tonight.”
It wasn’t flashy and there weren’t many strikeouts for Arrieta, who fanned just one batter in the game. But he was economical and didn’t see much traffic on the base paths. He faced the minimum through five innings, courtesy of three double-play balls in the second, fourth and fifth.
Not many would have projected that Arrieta would be the ace of the Cubs’ starting rotation halfway through May, but that’s exactly what he’s done. Outside of his last start where he injured the thumb, Arrieta has allowed three runs or less in each of his starts this season.
“I was able to maintain a pretty good grip on everything,” Arrieta said. “The seams on the ball weren’t really a big factor. The thumb really wasn’t an issue. I was a little stale, though. But had some through a lot of good sinkers and induced quite a bit of weak contact.”
“A lot of ground balls,” Ross said. “Nice to see Jake come back getting a lot of ground balls.”
Arrieta didn’t need much offense, but the Cubs got on the board in the third inning as Kris Bryant launched an opposite-field two-run shot to give the Cubs an early 2-0 lead. Bryant’s 10th homer of the season also gave him an MLB-leading 25 extra-base hits.
The Cubs added two more runs in the fifth on an RBI-double by Anthony Rizzo and RBI-single by Javy Baez to make it a 4-0 game.
Arrieta had allowed just two hits through 5 2/3 innings and almost got out of the frame unscathed, but surrendered back-to-back homers to Jake Rogers and Robbie Grossman, ending the shutout and cutting the lead in half.
Arrieta had only thrown 78 pitches going to the seventh inning, but in his first outing after coming off the IL, Ross decided to turn things over to his bullpen, who finished the game without any issues. He allowed just two runs on four hits over his six innings with one walk and one strikeout.
“I was on the fence to be honest with you,” Ross said. “I thought he probably could go. He had done a nice job with the next three batters that were coming up in the game. That next inning, I thought I was setting him up to get taken out if it didn’t go really cleanly. ... Just a lot of factors went into that a little more than the number.”
The Cubs rotation has slowly started to come around this month with Adbert Alzolay throwing the ball well and Zach Davies, Kyle Hendricks and Trevor Williams starting to figure things out. If Arrieta continues to be a stabilizing force at the front of the rotation, it only makes things easier for the staff in the long run.
“It is great to see,” Arrieta said. “Guys are gonna go through their struggles. It’s gonna happen again, we’re going to get another 20-plus starts. And we’ll have our hiccups here and there, but over the course of the season, things will even out and this group of guys will throw the ball very well consistently.”
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