Arrieta off, but NLDS foe ‘will be in trouble’

PITTSBURGH — Cubs manager Joe Maddon thought Jake Arrieta pitched well on Wednesday night, but the right-hander wasn’t happy with his final regular-season start, which felt more like a Cactus League game than a tune-up for the postseason.

The Pirates totaled seven runs on 10 hits over five innings off Arrieta, sending the Cubs to an 8-4 loss. Arrieta finished the regular season 18-8 with a 3.10 ERA, and he just missed posting a sub-3.00 ERA in three straight seasons. The last Cubs pitcher to do that was Bill Hands from 1967-69. Arrieta had a 2.53 ERA in 2014 and a 1.77 ERA during his National League Cy Young Award-winning season in ’15.

“It was kind of weird,” Maddon said of Arrieta’s outing. “I thought he had a great delivery, he was throwing strikes, his stuff looked good but he looked out of sorts. That was probably the best strike-throwing I’ve seen out of him for a bit. … He wasn’t that bad today.”

Arrieta wasn’t happy with some of the calls early in the game, which also may have thrown him off.

“The feeling of the game from the first pitch just wasn’t there,” Arrieta said. “I didn’t throw well, there’s no way around it. Three-run homer, gave up more in the fifth. I could’ve stopped it there and it got away from me. …

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