After placing up arguably the best nine-start opening of any MLB pitching profession, Chicago Cubs rookie Shota Imanaga struggled mightily in his tenth outing within the massive leagues, as he gave up seven earned runs in 4.1 innings of labor towards the division-rival Brewers on Wednesday.
He allowed two residence runs after giving up simply three in his earlier 53.2 innings and noticed his season ERA leap from the record-setting 0.84 to 1.86; that is nonetheless an elite mark, however indicative of a significant shift.
So the query should be requested: Was this simply an off day, the likes of which even one of the best pitchers will expertise now and again, or has the league merely found out Imanaga, placing an finish to the charmed begin of his MLB profession?
The reply, as is so typically the case in these conditions, doubtless lies someplace in the course of these two extremes.
There was completely no manner Imanaga was going to hold a sub-1.00 ERA a lot farther than he already had, however there isn’t any motive to imagine that seven-run outings would be the norm or that he cannot settle into high-caliber kind for prolonged intervals of time.
So what occurred towards Milwaukee? One tidbit is that the efficiency dropped Imanaga’s whiff price from the 86th percentile to the 76th, with out his chase price altering an excessive amount of. His stroll price additionally did not actually go anyplace, however his strikeouts fell off a cliff as he solely punched out one Brewer.
This all signifies that Imanaga’s management was nonetheless there, as was his velocity. He was throwing the identical pitches, however they have been getting hit at a better price. There are positively optimistic and adverse takeaways from that conclusion.
The nice is that he hasn’t all of a sudden stopped throwing the pitches that made him profitable. The dangerous is that those self same pitches did not have the identical impact towards Milwaukee as they’ve up to now.
The Brewers did not magically determine easy methods to crush the pitches that different MLB hitters could not up to now, however over Imanaga’s first 9 video games, they have been most likely being swung at and missed at an unsustainable price. All we will do is wait and watch to see simply what the affordable price finally ends up being.
Our subsequent have a look at Imanaga will likely be on June 4, as he appears for an enormous bounce-back begin towards the rival Chicago White Sox.
