Ivy League Cubs

By: Jacob Zanolla

Even though the playoffs are longer than a long shot, Shota Imanaga brought on his A game Wednesday night as the Cubs no-hit the Pirates, winning 12-0 in a blowout at Wrigley Field.

Imanaga went seven innings, throwing 95 pitches and striking out seven batters. He walked two batters, but the main reason he got pulled is because of the pitch count. The most pitches he’s thrown this season is 103, and that was back in June against the Cardinals.

He mainly used his elite four-seam fastball, along with the sinker 33 times. He worked his way around the zone really well, with a surprisingly high 50.0% ground ball rate. This meant that his fly ball rate (25%) was down, something we don’t see very often with him on the mound. Imanaga only had two balls hit over 100 mph against him, so he kept the contact rather light as well.

The big debate is whether Craig Counsell should have kept Imanaga in the game or not, seeing that he had not yet thrown 100 pitches. After the game, Counsell was asked about this decision.

I get it, Imanaga needs to be healthy for next season when the Cubs SHOULD be competing for a division title. However, in a season that has had so many heartbreaks, watching our rookie superstar throw a no-hitter at Wrigley Field would have been really fun to see. This tweet sums up my emotions perfectly. Michael gets it.

Isaac Paredes has received a lot of criticism during his Cubs tenure, although the latest road trip saw him do extremely well offensively, mixing in some good defense too. Tonight he had three errors, which easily added a decent amount of pitches to Imanaga’s arm. Whether he would have finished the game without those errors, I guess we’ll never know.

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