The historic accolades are flowing in for Jake Arrieta.

And with those, the Chicago Cubs ace is setting himself up to bring in the big one—the National League Cy Young Award. 

Arrieta made Cubs history Tuesday night when he threw a complete-game shutout, allowing three hits and one walk while striking out 11 in another dominant performance. This one came against the lowly Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field, and it was closed out with a weak ground-ball out and a standing ovation from the home fans.

The win was Arrieta’s 20th of the year, making him the first Cubs pitcher to win that many in a single season since Jon Lieber did it in 2001.

“When a guy gets that opportunity and eventually does that, that’s something you can never take away from him,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon told reporters after the game, noting that five-man rotations and pitch counts work against such a milestone in this era. “Historically, you always look at the 20-game winners and what that means. I know in one sense it doesn’t really mean as much as people think. On a personal level and historically, there is a significance.”

Chicago Sun-Times‘ Chris De Luca shared the newspaper’s back page, highlighting Arrieta’s record-setting win:

Arrieta also has a no-hitter this season to go with his 20 wins, and he is only the second pitcher to win 20 games for the franchise in the last 23 years (Greg Maddux did it in 1992) and the seventh Cub to accomplish the feat in the last 51 years. Tuesday’s performance was also Arrieta’s team-record 18th consecutive quality start.

While the win and quality start—which is defined by an outing of at least six innings and no more than three earned runs allowed—have been downgraded in this era of advanced metrics and better ways to gauge a pitcher’s contribution and value, the feats are still impressive.

“It just means I’ve put my team in positions to win ballgames,” Arrieta told reporters. “At the end of the day, that’s our goal, to try to pile on as many as we can, especially where we’re at in the season.” The team’s official Twitter account noted Arrieta set a franchise record for “consecutive quality starts”:

Arrieta’s run-prevention prowess stands out in his ERA, which has now ducked further under 2.00. With a 1.88 mark, Arrieta could become the first Cubs starter to post a sub-2.00 ERA since Pete Alexander in 1920, per STATS, which was the start of the Live Ball Era but still a year in which pitchers dominated, as illustrated by FanGraphs.

Arrieta also joined his chief Cy Young competition, Los Angeles Dodgers co-ace Zack Greinke, as the only pitchers in the majors with ERAs below 2.00. If both hurlers stay in that rarified air, this would be the first season since 1985 in which two pitchers posted sub-2.00 ERAs.

“Maybe this winter, sitting in Austin, Texas, in some pub, he might let out a nice holler about the whole thing,” Maddon told reporters. “It’s quite an accomplishment, especially the way he’s doing it. It’s been pretty remarkable to watch.”

The Cy Young Award, for now at least, is still being hotly contested.

Greinke, the likely front-runner in the race at this point, has a lower ERA (1.65) than Arrieta, and entering Tuesday, he had a better strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.14 to 4.45), WHIP (0.85 to 0.92), strand rate (86.6 percent to 79.1), ERA+ (227 to 201) and Baseball-Reference.com wins above replacement (8.7 to 7.4).

However, because Arrieta has superior strikeouts numbers, he had a better FIP (2.51 to 2.77) and FanGraphs WAR (6.2 to 5.5). Both those stats put a heavy emphasis on strikeouts.

And if you really like strikeouts, Greinke’s teammate and the reigning NL MVP and Cy Young winner, Clayton Kershaw, is likely to snatch a strong percentage of the votes. He leads the league in fWAR, strikeouts per nine (11.39), strikeout rate (32.9 percent), FIP (2.09) and xFIP (2.17). He also has a 2.18 ERA that could drop into the Greinke-Arietta realm over his next couple of starts, giving us three starters with sub-2.00 ERAs in a single season.

Arrieta has something else going for him, though, even if people might not want to admit it. He is a Cub, arguably the most recognizable sports franchise in North America. He is also the underdog of the three favorites, and voters can sometimes lean in that direction.

So, because he plays for a popular team and is the surprise candidate, much in the way R.A. Dickey was with the New York Mets in 2012, Arrieta could get a good number of on-the-fence voters.

Make no mistake, though: He is a stellar candidate worthy of such an honor, more so than Dickey was when he surprisingly beat out Kershaw.

There are still two or three starts to be made by this trio of outstanding pitchers, and it might come down to their final outings before we know who is the winner.

For now, we can enjoy the show.

 

All quotes, unless otherwise specified, have been acquired firsthand by Anthony Witrado. Follow Anthony on Twitter @awitrado and talk baseball here.

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