Cubs Recap: Jake Arrieta wins his final regular season start vs Brewers

Arrieta cruised to his 22nd win of the season

Chicago Cubs’ Jake Arrieta turned in yet another quality start and picked up win No. 22 during his final regular season start in the 6-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers Friday evening.

Young right-hander Ariel Pena (2-1, 4.28 ERA) started off the game by striking out Dexter Fowler, Kyle Schwarber then Kris Bryant in his first ever start against the Cubs (95-65), but would fall apart shortly after.

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Pena was tagged for three earned runs on five hits including one big fly that came off the bat of Anthony Rizzo while issuing only two walks and recording six strikeouts across 4 1/3 innings of work.

Arrieta (22-6, 1.77 ERA) held the Brewers (68-92) to just two hits with seven strikeouts in six innings of work prior to handing the rest of the workload over to his trusty bullpen.

Chicago scored the first run of the ballgame during the top of the third inning when Tommy La Stella slapped an RBI double to right field, scoring Addison Russell from second.

Russell nearly had himself a solo home run to left field, but the ball bounced off the top of the wall and bounced back into play, giving him his 28th double of the season.

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Rizzo made it a two-run contest with a solo bomb to right field – his 31st moon shot and 97th RBI of the season. He later made it a 4-0 lead on a two-run single to Logan Schafer out in center field, tying Bryant with 99 runs batted in.

With the Cubs still trailing big in the sixth, Russell came through with his second double of the game to lead-off the frame, setting up an RBI opportunity for his starter, Arrieta.

Instead, Jake would ground out to Hernan Perez for the first out of the frame.

Just a few batter’s later, Fowler drove in Russell from second with a base knock of his own, making it a 5-0 game. Right fielder, Kyle Schwarber kept things going with a groundball that was hit towards Jean Segura, who fielded the ball and unintentionally tossed it into the back of Fowler who slid into second.

The result of the play would be an error while both runners advanced to second and third.  Second baseman Starlin Castro scored the sixth and final Cubs run on a double of his own.

Khris Davis tagged Trevor Cahill with his 27th home run of the season during the bottom half of the seventh inning, cutting the lead down to just five runs.

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