Jake Arrieta’s first start in 2020 for the Philadelphia Phillies was more confusing than it was convincing.
Signed for a whopping $75 million back in 2018, pitcher Jake Arrieta has been anything but an “ace” for the Philadelphia Phillies. He’s pitched poorly, called out teammates, caused issues with other teams, and has battled injuries consistently over the last two years. Despite getting an extended offseason to work on his game this year, the veteran righty once again fell flat in his debut start.
For all intents and purposes, Arrieta’s outing against the New York Yankees on Monday night wasn’t absolutely terrible. Considering how loaded the Yankees’ lineup is, Arrieta actually held his own for a few innings. His final stat line finished at 5.0 innings pitched, seven hits allowed, three earned runs, zero walks, and four strikeouts. He allowed home runs to DJ LeMahieu and Brett Gardner, and gave up a RBI double to Aaron Hicks.
The Yankees had been on an absolute war path heading into their matchup with the Phillies, and many fans were expecting a full on blowout to occur. While Arrieta obviously wasn’t “good” in his start, plenty of people were quick to give him a pass on the night considering how dominant New York has been recently.
I am not one of those people.
The unending frustration with Arrieta is the fact that this is about as good as he ever gets. Only lasting five innings and earning the loss is normally considered a pretty bad outing for most pitchers, yet for Arrieta we’ve now become accustomed to deeming this a “decent” start.
Since arriving in Philadelphia, Arrieta has been a complete shell of his former Cy Young winning Chicago self. He’s recorded a 4.26 ERA across 55 starts with the Phillies, and he missed a whole chunk of time last year due to a bone spur injury.
Outside of his frequent outbursts and his constant blaming of teammates, the other major pain that has occurred from Arrieta is the fact that his contract has largely kept the Phillies out of play for other pitchers. The Phillies were lucky enough to snag Zack Wheeler on a discounted price this past offseason, but outside of that the team has added almost nothing to their pitching staff in recent years. Arrieta’s ginormous $25 million contract is undoubtedly a major reason why.
While he flashed some ability at points during the loss against New York (struck out four consecutive batters heading into the fifth), I’m personally at the point where I would be fine with exploring other options outside of Arrieta in the rotation. Superstar prospect Spencer Howard is expected to join the rotation soon, and I’d be more than okay seeing a guy like Adonis Medina join him as well. If we’re going to chuck out guys for five innings, I’d rather them at least be young.
Ultimately, despite Arrieta’s “okay start”, Joe Girardi and the Phillies were forced to turn to their abysmal bullpen by the sixth inning. Just a handful of pitches later, and the Phillies were down 6-1, fully out of reach of coming back. This is all simply commonplace for Arrieta at this point in his career, and something fans are going to have to get used to for at least another couple of starts.