CHICAGO (AP) — The road for Shota Imanaga from Japan to the major leagues included at least one sharp observation that has served him well in his transition to life with the Chicago Cubs.
“Watching foreign players in Japan and how they try to figure out how to get support from the fans, essentially I’m just doing the opposite of that, coming over here,” Imanaga said through a translator. “It was something I thought about.”
From his entertaining pitching style to his trips to Dunkin’ Donuts — “Either I order a small iced latte or a medium,” he said — Imanaga has moved with a purpose in his acclimation to the big leagues. And he is making it look easy at the moment.
Relying on a deceptive four-seam fastball that he usually locates at the top of the strike zone, along with a splitter that plays at the bottom, Imanaga is 5-0 with a 0.84 ERA for the contending Cubs. The left-hander also has 58 strikeouts and nine walks in 53 2/3 innings — thrusting himself into the early conversation for NL Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young Award.
Imanaga’s ERA is the lowest for a major leaguer for his first nine career starts — excluding openers — since baseball started tracking earned runs in 1913. Fernando Valenzuela had the previous mark at 0.91 in his second year with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1981.
It’s the fourth-lowest ERA since 1920 for any pitcher in his first nine starts in a season, trailing Jacob DeGrom (0.62 in 2021), Hall of Famer Juan Marichal (0.69 in 1966) and Zack Greinke (0.82 in 2009).
So far, Imanaga has been better than Chicago ever could have expected when it signed him to a $53 million, four-year contract in January.
“The way he thinks about himself as a pitcher, the way he talks through his first few starts here, he’s thoughtful about everything,” said Jed Hoyer, the president of baseball operations for the Cubs. “I think he knows he can continue to get better and continue to refine stuff. It’s been a great start, and I am glad people have sort of gravitated towards watching him.”
Have they ever.
Imanaga, who takes the mound in throwback-style high socks, is already a fan favorite in sports-crazy Chicago. But his early success is only part of the growing connection between the Japanese lefty and the passionate residents of Wrigley Field.
It started when Imanaga — wearing No. 18 in honor of Ben Zobrist, who was the World Series MVP when the Cubs won the title in 2016 — recited a couple of lines from the song “Go Cubs Go” during his introductory news conference.
