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Jake Arrieta of the Chicago Cubs
My fantasy baseball team hasn’t been so good of late. The main problem is this guy. After starting the season 11-1, Jake is 1-3 with only one quality start in his last six starts. He had 10 quality starts before the recent slump.
Luis Valbuena @ Coors Field (2014)
The 25-8 Cubs did something yesterday that hadn’t been done since 1929. They lost two games. But that wasn’t the exciting part. It was the first time since 1929 that a team had gone this far into the season without losing back-to-back games.
Today’s photo is of Luis Valbuena who played for the Cubs from 2012 until 2014. The Cubs ditched him before last season so that Kris Bryant could take over at third. Valbuena currently plays for the Houston Astros. The Cubs received Dexter Fowler in the trade, and he has been a great addition for Chicago.
October 21, 2015
Well, the Cubs aren’t going to win the World Series by tomorrow, and if they do win it, they really need to start playing better beginning today.
Jake Arrieta of the Chicago Cubs
@sammichashland @JArrieta34 @JakeArrietaNews
Jake Arrieta had a pretty good season last year (2014) except on the day I took this photo. On that day he gave up nine runs in just five innings. Coors Field can do that to any pitcher.
Since then he has been the best pitcher in MLB. This season he has 21 wins and an ERA below 2. He is the main reason the Cubs are going to the postseason in 2015. No other pitcher on the Cubs has more than 10 wins.
Matt Belisle of the Colorado Rockies in 2014
As Belisle’s salary increased each year from 2010 to 2014 with the Colorado Rockies so did his ERA. He took a nearly $1 million pay cut this year to pitch for the St. Louis Cardinals with good results so far (an ERA of 1.50 after 13 appearances).
Kyuji Fujikawa of the 2014 Chicago Cubs (Coors Field, Denver, Colorado)
While visiting Coors Field for the first time last year, I wondered why more than half of the photo pit was filled with Japanese photographers. I wasn’t aware of any Japanese players on either team, but that probably has more to do with my lack of interest in the National League than anything else. When Kyuji (literally “baseball child”) came trotting in from the bullpen, the photographers went crazy.
After an excellent career in Japan (196 saves and a 1.77 ERA), Kyuji hasn’t done much in MLB. He had a 5.04 ERA in two seasons with the Cubs (although he pitched in only 25 innings total–I bet the Cubs wish they hadn’t wasted $9.5M on him). He is on the DL for the Texas Rangers this year. Texas will pay him $1.1 million this season.