Chicago Cubs’ Shota Imanaga beats himself up over loss: “I should have kept them to zero”

The Chicago Cubs dropped their fourth straight game, this time coming up short, 4-1, against the MLB-best Atlanta Braves Wednesday evening at Truist Park.

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Amid continued struggles with a suddenly flat-lining offense, the strained and banged-up Cubs pitching staff has mostly held up. And that was also the case in this last game, where starter Shota Imanaga had another really good outing.

Through 7 full innings, the lefty allowed 2 earned runs on 5 hits and didn’t walk anybody. His stuff was effective, as it’s been throughout the season so far, with 6 strikeouts and 29% of his pitches generating a whiff or being called a strike, per observation of MLB.com’s Perla Paredes.

Imanaga burning with self-criticism

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Still, Imanaga was beating himself up a bit after the game as he spoke to media.

“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 via interpreter. “I should have kept them to zero.”

That’s certainly an admirable sentiment, although it’s probably not very mentally helpful or realistic.

The only even marginal miscue of the outing for Imanaga was the solo home run allowed to Drake Baldwin in the bottom of the fourth, on a slider that was actually low and out of the zone. Baldwin did a good job of reaching down and flicking it out of the park.

Imanaga, however, once again put the blame on himself for the big hit.

“If you see the at-bat, there’s a slider that [Drake Baldwin] swung at that was outside the zone,” Imanaga asserted. “I think that slider he hit a homer on, that was closer to the zone. He put a good swing on it, but I also didn’t execute my [pitch].”

Shota has been shining

On the season, the Japanese star is sporting a 2.32 ERA over 9 starts and 54.1 innings. He’s become the most consistently effective starter on a rotation that has suffered through some significant injury issues and is currently working without its top 2 projected starters, Cade Horton and Matthew Boyd.

A boost in velocity and some tinkering with pitch selection has resulted in improved execution for Imanaga over last year, where he struggled at times and went through an especially rough patch late in the season.

“Shota was awesome against a team that’s been that good offensively,” manager Craig Counsell told reporters after the game. “To shut them down into the eighth inning…he pitched wonderfully.

“He did a great job, and it’s a shame we couldn’t just do a little more on the other side of the ball to get him some runs.”

Imanaga beating himself up after a loss, like he did Wednesday, isn’t really something new. In a February edition of his podcast, the pitcher opened up about his poor performance for the Cubs in the postseason and how it brought shame to him.

“After we lost, I went to the locker room to clean up,” Imanaga said. “I thought fans might be harsh because I didn’t perform well in the postseason, but some said ‘Thank you for letting us enjoy this season.’ I felt ashamed I let them down and wished I could have shared the joy of winning with them.”

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Source: https://www.chicitysports.com/chicago-cubs-shota-imanaga-critiques-himself-after-loss/