Jake Arrieta's second half has been well-documented as he made an extremely strong case for the NL Cy Young Award (and Maddon even believes MVP).
The numbers are historic and speak for themselves but there's also the intimidation factor and mental toughness that Arrieta brings to the mound that is setting him apart around baseball.
[SHOP: Buy a Jake Arrieta jersey]
ESPN's Buster Olney joined The Dan Patrick Show on Monday and said in all his years of covering baseball, Arrieta may be as hot as any pitcher he's ever seen.
[MORE: Inside the Pirates plan for facing Arrieta]
"When you run through them, four earned runs in the last nine weeks," Olney said. "He's hit as many home runs as June 21 as he's allowed (two). He right now to me is the most unhittable pitcher that I've seen since I've covered baseball. That includes Pedro Martinez. Before those games between the Red Sox and Yankees, when Pedro was pitching, there was always a sense among the Yankees of 'Okay, we'll find a way to scrape out a run or two'. It's an open question as to whether or not you can score against Arrieta right now. His last 12 starts he hasn't allowed the other team a run in nine of them. Maybe the most comparable situation that I can recall is during the '86 playoffs how Mike Scott evolved into this unbeatable force in that series against the Mets. The Mets knew that they had to win before he pitched to them again."
You can check out the rest of the video from the show here.
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