Chicago Cubs left-hander Shota Imanaga felt confident as he stepped on the mound in Sunday night’s series finale against the Cincinnati Reds at Wrigley Field.
Despite coming off the shortest regular-season start of his three-year MLB career, Imanaga had been assured by Cubs manager Craig Counsell there were no doubts about his rotation status, that the team believed in him and was counting on him down the stretch.
“Craig’s been telling me (to) have confidence in myself, and if I do, I can go dominate the hitters,” Imanaga said through an interpreter. “I felt that feeling was there when I stepped onto the mound.”
By the fourth inning, the long-ball issues that had begun to plague Imanaga lately emerged. After a pair of home runs an inning later, those issues haunted him as he walked off the mound en route to a 7-5 loss to the Reds.
It was the sixth time this season he allowed three or more home runs in an outing, a franchise record. Imanaga has given up a home run in six straight outings and leads MLB with 33 home runs allowed.
The loss put the Cubs eight games behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central entering a four-game series between the teams beginning Monday at Wrigley Field. The Cubs are tied with the Philadelphia Phillies for the top NL wild-card spot and hold the tiebreaker, having won six of seven meetings.
“Yeah, I mean, he gave up three homers and two had men on base,” Counsell said of Imanaga. “The math doesn’t really work there as far as having a good start.”
Imanaga wiggled out of a one-out double in the first, then was supported by Pete Crow-Armstrong’s eighth leadoff home run of the season and the second in as many games. He worked around a pair of leadoff singles in the second and threw a perfect third.
That was the type of start that would have buoyed Imanaga after a two-plus-inning outing in Seattle, where he recorded just six outs, allowed five hits, surrendered a home run and threw 72 pitches.
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But the Reds’ Eugenio Suárez coaxed a walk between a pair of flyouts in the fourth, and Imanaga couldn’t pick up the final out. He allowed a single to Matt McLain and then a three-run home run to Héctor Rodríguez to give the Reds the lead.
A home run by Dane Myers to start the fifth and a two-run blast by Tyler Stephenson three batters later highlighted Imanaga’s home run woes.
“I couldn’t live up to (Counsell’s) expectations, so there’s a lot of frustration in myself there,” Imanaga said. “But moving forward, I do need to make those adjustments and improvements so I can reach his expectations and have his confidence.”
Imanaga’s struggles put a sour note on what could have been a perfect encore for Crow-Armstrong on the final night of a weekend that honored the history of the franchise.
Crow-Armstrong ended his night as he began it, with a solo blast, his 12th career multihomer game, second in a row and sixth this season. The two-homer day came after his first career three-homer game in Saturday’s win.
The ninth-inning solo shot was Crow-Armstrong’s 38th home run of the season and puts him well within striking distance of 40. Hall of Famer Billy Williams is the only left-handed hitter in Cubs history to eclipse the 40-homer mark, clubbing 42 in 1970. Crow-Armstrong’s 38 blasts are tied with Kyle Schwarber (2019) for second-most by a left-handed-hitting Cub.
“That says it all,” Counsell said. “I mean, it’s harder in right field. That’s what it says, and I think that’s played out. That (was) 50-plus years ago, so that tells you how difficult (it is). It’s just harder from that side of the plate to put balls in right field.”
It was the type of performance fit for many of the Cubs legends in attendance, including former catcher Jody Davis and left-hander Jon Lester, who were inducted into the team’s hall of fame Sunday. The pair were honored before the game on the field with other members of the franchise’s hall of fame and sang during the seventh-inning stretch as part of the festivities.
Crow-Armstrong’s three-homer Saturday had impressed Davis and Lester, and his follow-up Sunday surely left them in awe.
“I played with (Ryne Sandberg) in an MVP season, and you watch what (Crow-Armstrong is) doing, and is there anything he can’t do?” Davis said. “To have a game like that, it just shows how really good he is.
“We’ve got a little while to go here in this season, but certainly an MVP-style season.”
Roster updates
The Cubs designated left-hander Hoby Milner for assignment Saturday, cutting ties with the veteran reliever as the bullpen setup made him the odd man out.
“You have to replace somebody from the roster to get him on the roster,” Counsell said before Sunday’s game. “And at this point, we just didn’t see a move to make, so that means we had to make the other move.”
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Edward Cabrera (blister on right middle finger) is scheduled to start a rehab assignment with Triple-A Iowa on Tuesday.
Andy Martinez is a freelance reporter for the baiduhai.