Cubs' Shota Imanaga is crushing it on the mound, but life as a Chicagoan is coming along more slowly
Shota Imanaga during his big-league debut at Wrigley Field on April 1, 2024.
Michael Reaves/Getty
Look, Cubs newcomer Shota Imanaga brought this upon himself.
Imanaga, 30, has been so obscenely good since arriving from Japan, we have no choice but to compare him with giant pitching names present and past.
The lefty starter is 5-0 with a miniscule 0.84 ERA, the fourth-lowest after the first nine starts of a season since ERA became an official statistic in — come on, you know you remember it — 1913. The last to go lower nine starts in was Jacob deGrom, at 0.62 in 2021, when he was well on his way to a third Cy Young award before his season was cut short in July. In 2009, Zack Greinke was at 0.82 and en route to winning the Cy. In 1966, during baseball’s second dead-ball era, Juan Marichal was at 0.69 after nine starts en route to the Hall of Fame.
That’s some company Imanaga is keeping. Not only that, but his 0.84 — the lowest on record for a pitcher in the first nine starts of his career — nips Fernando Valenzuela’s 0.91 with the Dodgers in the Mexican’s unforgettable 1981 debut. All Valenzuela did from there was make his first of six consecutive All-Star teams and win both rookie of the year and the Cy.
So there’s the bar for the newest Cubs sensation. Sounds perfectly reasonable, right?
The Cubs pitcher is off to a blisteringly good start with a miniscule earned-run average. Here’s a game-by-game look at his first few starts.
But that’s not really fair, of course. Imanaga inevitably will begin to move closer to real-life numbers at some point. And speaking of real life, he has one. He has made success on the mound look so simple, it makes it easy to forget to ask a guy who moved halfway around the world and is living alone in a huge new city how life is going otherwise.
“Chicago’s such a great city, there’s no way I can get homesick,” he said via interpreter Edwin Stanberry.
A day after his latest gem at Wrigley Field, Imanaga walked into the clubhouse in red ankle boots and cuffed jeans, a black baseball cap on backward and a backpack slung over his shoulder. When he reached way up there to high-five 6-6 pitcher Ben Brown hello, the 5-10, 175-pound Imanaga, rising onto his toes, hardly looked the part of a dominant starter.
But that he has been, and the Cubs, who are struggling mightily to generate offense, have needed every bit of it.
The pitching might be coming along faster than the experience of living here, though.
“The [nice weather] lightens my mood,” he said. “It’s a lot better than the cold.”
Imanaga has ordered Japanese takeout a number of times but not yet sat down for a proper meal in a restaurant. He keeps meaning to sample a Chicago hot dog but has yet to belly up to a counter and order one. He has gone all-in on a couple of pizzas and marveled at the portion sizes, the thought occurring to him that pizza could help him keep his weight up throughout a long grind of a season.
“I’ve definitely noticed the fact that I’m a lot shorter than a lot of players here, but [at least] if I do gain weight, they’re not going to notice much,” he cracked.
And as some dogged reporters have sniffed out, Imanaga runs on Dunkin’. He stops for an iced latte on the way to the ballpark partly to practice English but also because that little bit of a routine helps him feel like he actually lives here.
“And also,” he added with a smile, “I really like coffee.”
As he’ll discover sooner or later, nothing goes better with a cup than a nice hot dog. Although a sparkling ERA that's already screaming for All-Star votes sure comes close.
Three-dot dash
• Watching reliever Aroldis Chapman mow down three good hitters — Mike Tauchman (strikeout), Seiya Suzuki (strikeout) and Cody Bellinger (lazy fly to left) — in the eighth inning Sunday at Wrigley brought back memories of 2016. Trying to stay awake as the Cubs were outhit 36-18 while losing three of four to the under-.500 Pirates most definitely did not.
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• Despite being on the business end of a three-game sweep at Yankee Stadium, Chicago’s other team was outhit by a more respectable count of 28-20. Or as the White Sox call it: exciting progress.
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• Yet another tip of the beer helmet to Northwestern’s women’s lacrosse team, which is back in the national semifinals. The defending champs will play Florida on Friday in Cary, North Carolina.
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• The Sky blocked 13 shots Saturday at Dallas, where they won their first game of the season. They also had 19 offensive rebounds, more than they had in any game in 2023. And they did both those things without injured rookie Kamilla Cardoso. It won’t be pleasant at all to have to face this team when the 6-7 Cardoso gets back out there — hopefully in June — and starts throwing her size around.
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• After taking a 2-0 series lead on the Pacers, Tom Thibodeau’s Knicks just couldn’t hold on and were eliminated on their home floor in Sunday’s Game 7. For the ex-Bulls coach, it’s the 11th straight season coming up short of the conference finals, proving once again that he’s nothing without Keith Bogans and Ronnie Brewer.
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• No offense to the PGA Championship or the fine folks at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky, but when scores reach 21-under, as they did in Sunday’s final round, that’s not a major. It's the Grand Prize Game on “Bozo’s Circus.”