Jake Arrieta takes to Twitter to shut down Stephen A. Smith, ESPN

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Jake Arrieta has emerged as one of the best pitchers in baseball, so naturally people are now throwing around the term "performance-enhancing drugs."

The Cubs ace laughed off those insinuations Tuesday in both a USATODAY article and then in meeting with Chicago reporters for nearly 15 minutes before the Cubs went out and beat the Milwaukee Brewers at Wrigley Field.

Apparently that laughing irked ESPN talking heads Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless because they went after Arrieta Wednesday.

Smith essentially just listed Arrieta's Baseball Reference page for much of the segment while talking about the right-hander's jump in innings pitched (and how deep he's going into games) and win total, citing how Arrieta's career high in wins in a season was 10 prior to notching 22 victories in his Cy Young 2015 season.

How exactly is a huge jump in wins an indication in any way of PED use? Wins are a team stat and the 2015 Cubs won 97 games.

"I'm not gonna accuse you of using performance-enhancing supplements, drugs, whatever you want to call it," Smith said. "But I will say that you shouldn't just be laughing at those who are looking at you and saying, 'Excuse me, what the hell is going on here?' Because it's not like they haven't seen performance-enhancing drug users before."

Smith then essentially said the same thing on Twitter while linking to the video, drawing Arrieta's attention:

Smith then backed down a bit in response:

Think it's safe to say we'll award the point to Arrieta in this round.

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