Arrieta and Baez lead Cubs over Blue Jays
CHICAGO — Jake Arrieta may never duplicate the second half he had two years ago in winning Major League Baseball’s National League Cy Young Award.
The Chicago Cubs don’t care. They’ll take what the right-hander is giving them now.
Arrieta pitched into the seventh inning and allowed a run, Javier Baez homered and drove in three runs, and Chicago beat the Toronto Blue Jays, 7-4, on Friday in a rare interleague baseball matchup between the two in the Windy City.
Arrieta (13-8) allowed one run and six hits in 6 1/3 innings to win his third straight start. He has allowed two earned runs or fewer and gone at least six innings in each of his seven starts since the all-star break.
“Jake was outstanding,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “Right now, maybe not as good as he was a couple of years ago, but he’s pretty darn close.”
Despite going 22-6 with a 1.77 ERA in 2015, Arrieta, 31, said recently that he believes his best pitching is still to come.
Ryan Goins had a two-run single and Kevin Pillar added an RBI double in a three-run eighth for the Blue Jays. Miguel Montero, who began the season with the Cubs, went 2 for 4 with a run scored against his former team.
This is Toronto’s second visit to Wrigley and first since June 2005.
Jays starter J.A. Happ (6-9) allowed five runs and nine hits in five innings to snap a three-game winning streak.
After Toronto went up 1-0 in the first, the Cubs answered with three runs in the second, aided by a Happ’ mental mistake. With runners on second and third and one out, Heyward hit a grounder wide of first base. Smoak easily fielded it, but Happ didn’t break to cover and Heyward beat him to the bag for a run-scoring single.
Baez followed with a bloop single to make it 2-1. One out later, Almora Jr. singled to score Heyward. Chicago stretched the lead to 5-1 in the fifth on Rizzo’s two-run single.
Toronto scored three in the eighth off Pedro Strop to trim the Cubs’ lead to one, but Baez’s tworun homer (No. 20) in the bottom of the inning provided insurance.
Montero was designated for assignment by the Cubs following some comments critical of Arrieta holding on runners in early July.
“I knew it was going to be a challenge,” Montero said. “To be honest I was nervous early in the game. I never felt like (that), not even in my debut in the big leagues.”
The person least troubled by Montero’s comments was Arrieta.
“I came up for my second at-bat and I asked him if he wanted to go out for a drink tonight, so we might do that,” Arrieta said. “He’s one of my favourite guys. It’s a little upsetting to see the way it ended for him here, but it is what it is.”
TRAINER’S ROOM Blue Jays: Closer Roberto Osuna was sent back to the team hotel because of an illness. UP NEXT Cubs lefty Jose Quintana (3-2, 3.86 ERA) faces righty Nick Tepesch (1-1, 5.23) in the second of three. Quintana has a 1.77 ERA in nine starts against Toronto.