LOS ANGELES — For all of Shota Imanaga’s moments of greatness during his first major-league season, Tuesday night’s stage at Dodger Stadium helped bring out another level within the Chicago Cubs left-hander.
In a matchup featuring Imanaga and fellow Japanese standout, right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the Cubs star delivered one of his best outings in a 6-3 comeback victory. He rose to the moment, holding the Dodgers to three runs, all on solo homers, in seven innings without walking a batter and striking out four. Imanaga kept Shohei Ohtani hitless in three at-bats, the two tipping their caps to each other as the slugger stepped into the box in the first inning.
As Imanaga reflected going up against his national team compatriots, he recalled something Yu Darvish shared when they played together on Team Japan: When you’re facing great competition, you lose your limits and go past that, you almost feel like there’s another step ahead of that.
“Facing Yamamoto, facing Ohtani, facing all the great hitters on the Dodgers, I feel like that’s what happened, where I had a limit and I went past that,” Imanaga said through interpreter Edwin Stanberry.
Tuesday’s game represented just the second time in MLB history with four Japanese-born players in the starting lineup. The only other time was when the Mariners and Yankees faced off on May 4, 2007 (Ichiro Suzuki, Kenji Johjima, Hideki Matsui and Kei Igawa).
“It’s fun when there’s two very good pitchers on the mound, for sure,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said pregame. “Major League Baseball has talked about this and enjoying the matchups of their best starting pitchers and their marquee starting pitchers and tonight we get one of those matchups.
“But then baseball has a funny way of like not answering it for us, so hopefully it does.”
Counsell’s hopes proved prescient.
Yamamoto, off the injured list for his first start since June 15, stymied the Cubs early striking out eight through three innings. The Cubs were able to grab a lead in the second with Pete Crow-Armstrong’s hard-hit single being too tough for first baseman Freddie Freeman to corral. Yamamoto, limited to a pitch count, was done after four innings, and the Cubs’ grinding at-bats challenged the Dodgers’ best relievers, ultimately taking advantage of miscues in the eighth.
The Cubs (75-70) have won 10 of their last 11 road games and will go for the sweep Wednesday night.
Crow-Armstrong’s electric defense in center field saved the Cubs with two highlight reel catches. A sliding backhanded grab in the right-center gap stole a run-scoring double from Hernandez to end the seventh, preventing the Dodgers from tacking on to their 3-1 lead on a ball that Imanaga was initially thought would drop for a hit.
“But when it was coming down, knowing it was Pete, I had faith in him, and he made a fantastic play,” Imanaga said.
Crow-Armstrong, though, one-upped that play in the ninth. His leaping snag over the wall robbed Max Muncy of a two-run homer to end the game, gloving the ball despite a deflection off a fan’s cap as they attempted to use their hat for a basket catch.
On home run robbery to end game, Pete Crow-Armstrong made catch despite ball deflecting off fan’s hat as they attempted to catch it.
To have great defensive night where PCA came to games as kid “feels cool roaming around where I watched from afar a lot.” pic.twitter.com/KFWGg7KEBa
— Meghan Montemurro (@M_Montemurro) September 11, 2024
“I didn’t grow up a Dodgers fan, but I came to a lot of games here and spent a lot of time here — Matt Kemp was the center fielder growing up for me,” Crow-Armstrong said. “It just feels cool, roaming around where I watched from afar a lot.”
Seiya Suzuki fittingly came through with a huge hit in the eighth inning, tying the game on his two-run single. He came around to score on a Kike Hernandez’s fielding error and Nico Hoerner’s subsequent double capped a five-run eighth.
Suzuki uniquely understands the on-and-off the field challenges that follow after leaving Nippon Professional Baseball to play in the majors.
“Coming over here, it was difficult for me to get adjusted, especially in the first year, but for him to come here, mix well with the team, watching what he’s doing, staying healthy and continuing to play, honestly, there’s only really one way to describe it is great,” Suzuki said through Stanberry.
The Cubs had two years of Suzuki to help the organization learn and understand how to best help a Japanese player’s transition to the majors in this era. Imanaga’s all-around performance is a testament to his adaptability and, on the mound, an innate recognition of what makes him successful against big-league leaders. He recorded his 17th quality start Tuesday and owns a 3.03 ERA and 134 ERA+ through 27 starts spanning 160 1/3 innings.
Through all of that, Imanaga’s responsibilities have included added Japanese media coverage in the lead up to and aftermath of his starts.
“I don’t know how he could handle it better from my perspective,” Counsell said. “The attention, the separate requests and then with the success that all ramps up. He’s very good at being accommodating yet setting boundaries, and I think that’s kind of the goal of everybody in this circumstance.”
Tuesday was a precursor to the electric atmosphere that awaits both teams and the Japanese foursome in March when the Cubs and Dodgers open the season with a two-game set in Tokyo where Imanaga, Ohtani, Yamamoto could all start. As for whether Imanaga gets the ball for opening day in six months, Counsell deftly navigated that likelihood.
“I’ve always refused to answer that question for as long as I possibly could, but that one might be hard for me to punt on,” Counsell said wryly.