The Righty Aces
At spring training this year in Mesa, Ariz., Jake Arrieta ventured out to the desert with a photographer from ESPN the Magazine for a cover shot that would be unveiled during the summer.
Coming off his Cy Young Award-winning season, Arrieta had suddenly become a superstar on a team that created a buzz all spring, and the fruits of his hard work finally were paying off.
When the issue finally came out in July with the Cubs in New York, it was revealed that the photo shoot was actually Arrieta pitching off a mound in the nude.
The reaction by the media was swift.
Had Arrieta ever thrown naked before?
“Just in front of my wife in the room,” he replied. “It didn't feel normal, but that was the scenario and I just went with it.”
Was he worried about a cover jinx?
“I don't know,” he said. “We'll find out.”
It was just Jake being Jake.
Arrieta's confidence never wavered this season, which was a success by almost every measure — an 18-8 record, a major-league-leading .194 opponents' batting average, a workload of 1971/3 innings, a selection to his first All-Star team and his status as leader of a rotation that fueled a 103-win season.
The only thing missing was something Arrieta could not control — that feeling of complete and utter confidence fans had in him back when he took the mound in 2015.
Arrieta could not live up to the standard of perfection he set during his brilliant '15 season, and his past success was used by some to paint his season as disappointing.
“I think last year is indicative of what Jake is all about,” manager Joe Maddon said. “This season everybody has been over-scrutinizing him based on what he had done last year. He had a great season. It's not maybe as great as last year was, but it's hard to replicate that.”
Yet Arrieta hears the whispers, the talk that he's not the same pitcher he was last year and can lose his control from time to time. He doesn't hide from it and admits he could've done more.
“Well, from a numbers perspective, I would have liked maybe to be a little bit better,” he said. “But at the same time, I took the ball every five days, had a lot of great things throughout the season to be excited about.
“Some things I've wanted to work on to improve on. But at the same time, I've prepared the same way from start to finish and really like the process and trust the stuff moving forward and know that it's more than good enough to have a lot of success for this team in the postseason.”
Clyde Wright warned Rod Carew, the Hall of Fame hitter, what was coming. Wright, an Angels pitcher from 1966 to '73 who runs a pitching school in Southern California, and Carew, a family friend, were regulars at high school games Kyle Hendricks pitched.
“One day, Kyle had a kid 3-2 with the bases loaded and I said, ‘Rod, watch him throw this curveball,' ” Wright, 75, recalled.
“Rod said, ‘He won't throw that here.' I knew he would because I had told Kyle not to be afraid to throw any pitch in any situation. And he just froze the kid at the plate. Rod was like, ‘Wow.' ”
Hendricks began working with Wright — and wowing him — when he was 11.
“He had extremely big hands and fingers and good mechanics already,” Wright said. “I told him: ‘You know what you're doing. Listen to me and we might make something ... and if you don't listen, I'm going to kick your ass.' He just looked at me like, what in the world is that old man doing?”
Reminded of that, Hendricks laughed. The two used to spend so much time together that Wright's wife kidded him he paid more attention to Hendricks than his own son, Jaret, a former Indians pitcher. Hendricks cherishes the memories.
“He's a big character, and every pitch I'd throw he'd be yelling something back at me in that Tennessee accent,” Hendricks said. “I was a quiet kid. It was me and him ... and he'd tell me what to do. He opened me up and we became pretty close. The biggest thing was he taught me how to throw a curveball, so when I was at the right age I'd know how to throw a healthy one.”
His repertoire made him more of a pitcher than a thrower, making Wright wary whether pro scouts eventually would see what he saw in the right-hander.
“He had the capability to pitch in the big leagues, but the big thing against him was he didn't throw that hard, so we were just hoping somebody would give him a chance,” Wright said. “I think he's thrown the same speed the last six, seven years.”
Remember when Cubs manager Joe Maddon said about the 6-foot-3, 190-pound mound magician: “Put the radar gun in your back pocket and look at what he's doing”?
Scott Budner, a pitching coach who worked with Hendricks, echoed that advice for appreciating Hendricks.
“I hope everybody sees how Kyle does it,” Budner said. “It's the beautiful essence of pitching. He repeats his pitches and stays within himself, not worried about all those (speed) guns. He makes it about the art of pitching.”
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