Baffoe: Yo, Ventura and Maddon, Make Sale-Arrieta Happen
By Tim Baffoe--
(CBS) One of the two Chicago baseball managers needs to make a phone call across town.
"Hey, Joe, Robin here. What do you think your starting rotation will look like after the All-Star break?"
Or "'Sup, Ventura, this is Maddon. How's it g… Oh. Hi there, Ricky Renteria. Um, can I speak with Robin, please? Thanks. (Jeez, awkward.)"
Then they need to work out a Chris Sale-Jake Arrieta matchup in one of the four crosstown games between July 25-28. We deserve it -- baseball fans, Chicagoans, selfish handsome online columnists.
Sale (9-0, 1.58 ERA) and Arrieta (8-0, 1.29) will be automatic selections to their respective All-Star rosters, and both are candidates right now to start that game. But that's not really a matchup, each guy throwing an inning or two in an exhibition game that still idiotically decides home-field advantage. (IN THE RED LINE WORLD SERIES AMIRITE???)
As the regular-season schedule suggests, sans any missed starts from either pitcher or their rotation mates, Sale would get his final first-half start on July 8 and Arrieta on July 7. Neither then would be able to make the excuse of pitching recently to get out of throwing in the Midsummer Classic in San Diego on July 12. It stands to reason then that both Sale and Arrieta would be pushed back in the first series of the regular season's second half -- let's say the third game on Sunday of that first series back.
Due to team off days, each throwing in his club's third game back would line up Sale to pitch July 27 against the Cubs and Arrieta July 28 against the Sox. That simply can't be. It's also easily fixable.
While understanding a lot can probably happen between now and the four crosstown games and that at least one wrinkle in any planning will occur, just make it work, Robin and Joe. Please.
Yeah yeah yeah, the rotation is a delicate balance. Guys have routines and rhythms and blah blah blah. The White Sox are just another opponent to the Cubs and vice versa.
Shut up and do it. Sale-Arrieta. The Throwdown in Chi-town (Chicagoans don't use Chi-town, but think of the national headline and chyron writers). Hitters' Hell in The Cell. Between the Lines at the Friendly Confines.
Sale's physique not withstanding, this would be a heavyweight title fight and deserves the appropriate treatment. Maddon loves his T-shirts. Make a few thousand and split the proceeds between his and Ventura's favorite charities.
This would sure as hell beats the inevitable "All City Team" rehash pieces printed that week. And if the two aces don't face one another, it creates what-if speculatory "embrace debate" talk-show lazy-topic choice arguing.
Maddon and Ventura are both cerebral guys, and for the sake of those of us not entertained by mindless TV sports talk shows, they should give us the actual instead of the mind-numbingly futile hypothetical.
(Note: If we get said matchup, the outcome absolutely proves who is the better pitcher. Forever.)
If the subject is broached, both managers will default to their entire staff and how they think all their guys can take the ball against whomever and help the team win. Sure, numbers on paper tell us that Jon Lester or John Lackey could best Sale on a given day. Yeah, Jose Quintana or Carlos Rodon could stifle the Cub bats in a game in which one White Sox run would be enough for the win.
in theory. Screw theory.
What's not theory or guessing or advanced analytics is that Sale-Arrieta would be the matchup of the year in Major League Baseball and the best square-off in the history of Cubs-White Sox regular-season matchups. For an annual meeting that no longer has the shine it used to -- and the two teams still at or near first place mid-July will rekindle the shirseyed tribalism that has evaporated of late -- the two best pitchers in baseball taking the same mound would be the event of the summer of 2016.
Plus, Arrieta and Sale obviously don't like another alpha dog in the same city as them.
"He is as good as it gets right now," Sale said in firing a shot across the bow last week at Arrieta. "He is by far the best pitcher in baseball. Right now there really isn't that much of an argument about that.
"Watching what he does and how he does it, the command he has of the game. Even when things start getting a little out, he can bring it back in. His ability to do that and ability to pitch and mix it up is great."
Oh, no he didn't. Look at them fighting words.
I haven't found a quote from Arrieta about Sale, (and I'm not allowed near the locker room or players' parking lot anymore), and that silence speaks volumes. Clearly, he no respect for the potential opponent.
We deserve this matchup. Chicago warrants it. Baseball needs it. The collective self worths of the South and North Sides are relying on it. And, damn it, give us Quintana-Lester to boot. There are two special baseball situations in town this summer, and they need to be maximized when their paths cross.
And if for some stupid reason Sale and Arrieta can't pitch against one another because their managers hate awesomeness and everything the troops fought for to get us here, then the aces need to be allowed to fight each other. It's the only way to achieve the proper release their dominance has built up. Satisfaction must be had.
Fair is fair, and you know in your hearts what is the right call here, Ventura and Maddon. So pick up that phone.
Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBaffoe. The views expressed on this page are those of the author, not CBS Local Chicago or our affiliated television and radio stations.
