Chicago Cubs: Celebrating the historic achievements of Jake Arrieta

A retirement gift for Grandpa Rossy

The 2016 campaign featured countless mementos for David Ross, who retired at season’s end. Jake Arrieta, however, gave him the best gift of all: catching a no-hitter.

Chicago put together one of its best all-around performances of the season at the Great American Ballpark that night. The offense tallied 16 runs and, yet again, Arrieta twirled a masterpiece. This continued a seemingly endless string of lights-out performances from the right-hander.

The best way to sum up Arrieta’s dominance comes from former Cincinnati outfielder Jay Bruce.

"“It’s tough. We got dominated,” he told MLB.com. “It’s the most dominating baseball game I’ve ever been a part of. Obviously, he was great. We weren’t. The news and the talking points are the no-hitter and all the runs scored. But at the end of the day, we lost a game. We just have to keep going. Nothing we can do about it now.”"

That’s a fair sentiment at the end of game as lopsided as that. But, in all honesty, there was nothing the Cincinnati Reds could do – even during that contest. Arrieta ended the Reds’ MLB-leading streak of 7,109 games without being no-hit; while also etching his name in baseball history.

Only Nolan Ryan has more no-hitters away from his home ballpark in Major League Baseball history. Arrieta tossed a season-high 119 pitches to get his ultimate prize, but, when the dust settled, history was made.

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