ATLANTA — Shota Imanaga holds himself to a high standard.
Even when facing the best offense in baseball, Imanaga’s standard doesn’t change. The lefty wasn’t satisfied with his stellar outing in the Chicago Cubs’ 4-1 loss Wednesday to the Atlanta Braves despite pitching into the eighth inning and departing in a tie game.
The Braves tagged reliever Phil Maton for three runs in the eighth, including one runner he inherited from Imanaga, to send the Cubs (27-16) to their season-high fourth consecutive loss.
“Reflecting on my outing today, if I didn’t give up any runs, then the Cubs would have had a chance to win,” Imanaga said through interpreter Edwin Stanberry. “So when I’m looking back at it, I should have kept them to zero.”
Imanaga got into a groove in the middle of the game, using an inning-ending double play in the fourth to spark a stretch of 10 consecutive retired batters. Michael Harris II’s leadoff single in the eighth ended Imanaga’s efficient night.
Hitters are batting .183 against Imanaga this year, the seventh-lowest average in baseball. He has been able to get hitters to expand their zone. He leads the majors with a 39.7% chase rate, and it was again part of his success Wednesday, getting the Braves to chase on 38% of pitches out of the strike zone.
Imanaga extended his streak of pitching at least five innings to 20 games, the third-longest active streak in the National League behind the Philadelphia Phillies’ Cristopher Sánchez and Zack Wheeler.
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“Shota was awesome,” manager Craig Counsell said. “Against a team that’s been that good offensively, to shut them down into the eighth inning, he pitched wonderfully. It’s a shame we couldn’t do a little more on the other side of the ball to get him some runs.”
The Cubs’ offensive futility on the trip continued with wasted chances. Although limited to four hits, they drew five walks — but they went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left seven on base. During the four-game skid, the Cubs have gone 1-for-27 with RISP while squandering 25 baserunners.
“Three of these four days we’ve had the starter out before the fifth inning because we’ve piled up pitch counts, and we’ve had really good at-bats and we’ve created action,” Counsell said. “We’re missing some hits right now. We’ve got some guys having good at-bats (and) they’re not ending up in hits.
“Some are ending up in walks, and some long at-bats that end up in outs. That probably means we’re missing some pitches that we probably need to hit during the course of that. It adds up to some tough offensive games.”
Nico Hoerner’s RBI single tied the game in the fifth, but a chance for a multirun inning came up short when Alex Bregman grounded out to third with runners on second and third.
The Cubs had another chance to take the lead in the eighth with a two-out rally. Bregman singled and stole second, and Ian Happ challenged a full-count, strike-three call that was overturned to a walk. Seiya Suzuki, up for the second time with two on, struck out to end the inning.
Maton had pitched well this month coming into Wednesday. He hadn’t allowed a run in five appearances while allowing just one hit and one walk.
Harris’ infield single came on a ball Hoerner tried to scoop and shovel with his mitt and got past first baseman Michael Busch. That prompted Counsell to end Imanaga’s night at 96 pitches with right-handed-hitting Ha-Seong Kim due up.
Maton didn’t bury a curveball low enough, allowing Kim to single to left. Maton recovered to strike out lefty pinch hitter Dominic Smith, but for the second straight night Mike Yastrzemski burned the Cubs. Yastrzemski turned on a sweeper over the plate for a go-ahead RBI double. The Cubs cut down Kim at the plate to keep it a one-run game, at least briefly.
Maton has been wrestling with his curveball grip all season and continues to search for consistency. Mauricio Dubón delivered the big blow on another Maton curve that caught too much plate for a two-run homer. A scuffling Cubs offense must find a way to beat left-hander Chris Sale on Thursday to avoid getting swept in Atlanta.
“We had a situation where we can escape with even just a one-run deficit and have more of a chance in the top of the ninth, but (I’ve) got to execute that pitch there and give the boys a chance,” Maton said. “It’s still a matter of putting guys away when we have opportunities to do that and just not really doing that right now.”