Chicago Cubs RHP Shota Imanaga (31) has made a perfect comeback.
Imanaga started the game against the St. Louis Cardinals at Wrigley Field in Chicago, Illinois, on Saturday (June 16) and pitched seven innings of four-hit ball, striking out six and walking one.
After a clean start with a strikeout in the top of the first, Imanaga gave up a leadoff single to Nolan Arenado. But he got Nolan Gorman to fly out to second base and got Ivan Herrera and Dylan Carlson to fly out to center field and third base, respectively, to end the inning. In the bottom of the third, another strikeout ended the inning.
After a leadoff double by Alec Burleson in the fourth, Imanaga got Paul Goldschmidt to ground out to shortstop, but a runner was on third base. 안전놀이터 추천 Arenado finally broke through with a single to center field.
Gorman got a fly ball to right field to end the threat.
The Cubs broke the game open with two runs in the bottom of the fourth. Imanaga recorded a triple in the top of the fifth. In the top of the sixth, Maysin Wynn led off with a single, but Boulson flied out to left field and Goldschmidt grounded out to shortstop to end the inning.
Imanaga took the mound in the seventh and walked leadoff hitter Arenado on a pitch to the body. Gorman followed with a swinging strikeout, but Herrera singled to put runners on first and second. After getting Carlson to fly out to left field, Imanaga got the final batter, Brendan Donovan, to strike out swinging to get out of the jam himself. He was replaced by Tyson Miller in the eighth inning with the Cubs leading 5-1. The Cubs held on for the 5-1 win.
Imanaga threw 103 pitches. He used his four-seam (51), splitter (29), sweeper (16), and curve (7) to shut down the St. Louis bats. His fastball topped out at 93 miles per hour (149.7 km/h), but unlike his previous outings, which were more of a four-seam-splitter-two-pitch mix, his sweepers and curveballs were up a bit, taking away hitters’ timing.
The sweeper had a 55% swing-and-miss rate.
Imanaga, a veteran left-hander with a 64-50 record and a 3.18 ERA in 165 games (1002⅔ innings) over eight seasons (2016-2023) in Nippon Professional Baseball, signed a four-year, $53 million contract with the Cubs this offseason. He started the season with a dominant performance, earning National League Rookie of the Month honors in April.
Imanaga suffered his first major league loss on April 30 at Milwaukee, giving up seven runs on eight hits (two homers) with one walk and one strikeout in 4 1/3 innings. On April 5 against the White Sox, he allowed five runs (one earned) on seven hits (one homer) with six strikeouts and one walk in 4 1/3 innings before a costly error by third baseman Christopher Morel led to a rain delay. 카지노사이트 순위 His ERA has risen to 1.88 on the season after dropping to 0.84 in his last start against Pittsburgh on March 19 (7 innings, 4 hits, 1 walk, 7 strikeouts).
After a shaky start, Imanaga seems to have settled down recently. He followed up his 6⅔ inning, five-hit (one homer), one walk, seven strikeout, two-run win at Cincinnati on April 10 with seven shutout innings. On the season, he is 7-1 with a 1.89 ERA in 13 games (76 innings).