Bernstein: Don't Be Surprised If Jake Arrieta Does This Again
By Dan Bernstein--
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) Going from one list to the other one is a big enough deal, as Cubs ace Jake Arrieta did Thursday night in joining the other MLB pitchers with multiple no-hitters. But he may not be done.
Of the 295 such performances officially recognized, 34 pitchers now have more than one of them. Arrieta notched his two within 11 regular-season starts of each other, and he seems to give himself a chance every time he takes the mound. He took a no-hitter into the fifth inning seven times in his last 18 starts of 2014 and did it twice last year, including the one he finished off. Now in what seem to be his prime years, each start for the 30-year-old Arrieta is more of an opportunity than it may have been in a different era of baseball.
This year his ERA is 0.87, and the near-term landscape is increasingly conducive to his chance to reach the even more rarefied air of those with three no-hitters or more. Nolan Ryan had seven, Sandy Koufax threw four and those with three include Cy Young, Bob Feller and former Cub Larry Corcoran, who pitched from 1880 to 1887.
2015 saw a spike in the no-hitter accomplishment, with seven of them being thrown. As noted by beyondtheboxscore.com and elsewhere, the past five years have seen more no-hitters than any similar time period over more than a half-century, due largely to increases in strikeout rate and the use of defensive shifts. There were seven no-hitters in 2015, five in 2014, three in 2013, seven in 2012 and three in 2011.
Put simply, this is a time for them -- umpires are calling more strikes than ever and players are swinging with abandon, so scoring is down. Historically, periods of lower scoring correlate to more no-hitters.
Also coinciding with Arrieta at or near the peak of his powers is a National League filled with bottom-feeders just waiting to get mowed down on a given night. The Cubs' own division features both the Reds and the Brewers, while the Braves and Phillies in their apparent efforts to accelerate rebuilding will provide any number of occasions for Arrieta to join those legendary names. And this is April we're talking about, well before the trade deadline that often sees rosters polarized further. It won't get any harder for him, in that respect.
One big question could be how manager Joe Maddon decides to let Arrieta chase that kind of glory. He threw 119 pitches Thursday and 116 when he blanked the Dodgers late last August. There are goals that matter more than those of an individual player, particularly one as critical to the team's ultimate fortunes as an ace starting pitcher.
Considering where we are in the young season and the concerns over Arrieta's 2015 workload, Maddon may have one of those "good" problems that will need careful consideration on more than one night still to come.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Boers and Bernstein Show" in afternoon drive. You can follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.