Greenberg: For Cubs ace Shota Imanaga, it was bad timing to show he's actually human (2024)

MILWAUKEE — Look on the bright side, no one got hurt. As far as we know.

Sure, Shota Imanaga got knocked around for his first time in the majors and the Cubs lost again to fall back to 4 1/2 games of the division-leading Brewers. But, hey, at least no Chicago outfielders strained anything reaching for, or looking up at, all those rocket shots Imanaga gave up early in the game.

In a quiet postgame clubhouse after a 10-6 loss at Miller Park, the only thing the Cubs seemed to be nursing were their dinners.

But man, what a bad loss for late May.

Imanaga has been the shining light for the Cubs during an often dim early part of the season and this would’ve been a perfect time for him to come through, with the Cubs slogging through an offensive drought and facing their division rivals, who have already built a small lead in the NL Central.

Instead, Brewers fans seemed to get an extra oomph in their booing of former manager Craig Counsell when he came out to relieve Imanaga in the fifth inning. Maybe that’s why Imanaga, who was wearing a hat that said “pressure makes diamonds,” said he wanted to apologize to his manager for his outing.

Imanaga, of course, is allowed to have a bad game. Even the 30-year-old left-hander had been expecting one to come during his early dominance of his new league. He came into the game with a 0.84 ERA and the Cubs (28-28) had won eight of his nine starts. His long list of historical accomplishments, which takes up almost a half-page in the team’s game notes, has brought back “Fernando-mania” to our everyday baseball lexicon.

Through it all, Imanaga seemed surprised at his good fortune.So he was due, right?

.@theBlakePerkins has a double, a homer and one of the best catches of the year…

It's the fourth inning. https://t.co/uWiSUs3LT2 pic.twitter.com/3JobluS0i7

— Milwaukee Brewers (@Brewers) May 30, 2024

His previously scheduled start on May 24 in St. Louis was rained out, so the club pushed him back to Wednesday night to give him an additional five days of rest. With Imanaga coming over from Japan, where they use six-man rotations, the Cubs want to be proactive about giving him rest.

Like a lot of well-intentioned ideas, it didn’t work as Imanaga left his full array of pitches up in the zone, without the benefit of his usual subterfuge, and the Milwaukee hitters feasted like he was tipping his pitches. It was his first start against the Brewers but clearly they were ready for him. They hit three doubles and two homers off him, scoring seven runs off the Cubs ace in just 4 1/3 innings.

To put that in perspective, Imanaga had only allowed seven runs (five earned) all season through his first 53 2/3 innings. His ERA jumped all the way to 1.86.

“They were definitely aggressive,” Counsell said. “They felt aggressive on the fastball just from the start.”

“They were making adjustments,” Imanaga said through his interpreter. “And I didn’t have the consistency (Wednesday) to throw on top of the zone. I talked to my pitching coach about it, so I just want to work on that.”

After a two-run first, Milwaukee scored five runs on five hits in the bottom of the third, an inning Counsell described as “a bit of a merry-go-round.” Cubs fans surely felt sick watching it.

The offensively challenged Cubs actually collected nine hits to Milwaukee’s 10. The problem for them was that when they had runners on base, the big hits they needed often found a home in a Brewers outfielder’s glove, particularly the one belonging to center fielder Blake Perkins, who also hit a two-run homer in that busy third inning. The Cubs had just two extra-base hits, a homer by Ian Happ and a Cody Bellinger double, and went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position, leaving nine men on base. For comparison, the Brewers went 6-for-11 and stranded just one. (They also scored three runs off reliever Kyle Hendricks, just for kicks.)

They needed Imanaga, once again, to be Superman, but he was Clark Kent.

Christian Yelich obliterates this one 😮 pic.twitter.com/iBam1jI1gT

— MLB (@MLB) May 29, 2024

You knew this start was going to be a little different when Milwaukee leadoff hitter Joey Ortiz roped a double to right on an 0-2 pitch in the first inning. Two batters later, Christian Yelich launched a home run to right on the first pitch, a 93 mph groin-high fastball.

“He just wasn’t as sharp as we’ve seen in the past,” Counsell said. “They hit his mistakes.”

Imanaga has been a giant Band-Aid for the Cubs throughout April and May, but he was never supposed to be this good. He was billed as a No. 3 or 4 starter when team president Jed Hoyer signed him as a free agent.

Through the first two months, Counsell and Hoyer just basically repeated that no, they didn’t anticipate what he was doing, and yes, they’re enjoying it. But we all knew it wasn’t going to last forever. That his run ended so dramatically against the Brewers was just bad timing.

“I just want to reflect on it,” Imanaga said. “There could possibly be games where they score even more runs. Emotionally, physically, there might be tougher situations. So I just want to reflect and move forward.”

“Look, he’s been historically good,” Counsell said. “This is a tough league and a good team got him tonight. As soon as that happens, I think you just move to ‘What’s next?’”

And that’s where I come to bring you good news.

Imanaga’s next start is scheduled for Tuesday. He’ll face the White Sox at home. So while I can’t speak to how the rest of his season is going to go, in the short term, he’s going to be just fine.

(Photo: Benny Sieu / USA Today)

Jon Greenberg is a columnist for The Athletic based in Chicago. He was also the founding editor of The Athletic. Before that, he was a columnist for ESPN and the executive editor of Team Marketing Report. Follow Jon on Twitter @jon_greenberg