Losing last night was bad for its own reasons, but the real pain of it? Having now lost four in a row, rather than merely three, we can no longer assume the Cubs are about to rip off a ten-game winning streak …
Shota Imanaga was brilliant yet again last night, allowing five hits and no walks over 7.0 innings, with six strikeouts. He was charged with two runs, but that second run was about as “he did nothing wrong” as it can possibly be. Coming back out for the eighth, Imanaga got a soft grounder from Michael Harris II, which was a tough play for Nico Hoerner, but one he should’ve made. An errant flip didn’t actually get called an error, and Imanaga departed with Harris on first. Phil Maton came in and ultimately allowed Harris to score. Basically zero of that run is on Shota Imanaga. A side note on that: why do we not apportion runs when multiple pitchers are involved in the runner scoring? Like, last night – why don’t we give Imanaga 1/4 of an earned run (for one base) and Maton 3/4 of an earned run (for the other three bases he permitted)? It’s maybe SLIGHTLY unfair to the reliever in that kind of setup, because reaching base in the first instance is more difficult than advancing bases thereafter, but still. Hardly seems accurate to say Imanaga, alone, allowed Harris to score. Yet that’s what his stats will reflect. As for Imanaga, he was holding himself to an almost impossible standard (Sun-Times): “My outing, if I didn’t give up any runs, the Cubs would have had a chance to win. So I think when I’m looking at it, you know, I should have kept it to zero.” I get it and it’s technically true, but, my dude, you have been OUTRAGEOUSLY good this year. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and most nights, that’ll be plenty. Of course, the other side of that is … the offense needs to score more than one run. They’ve totaled just three runs over these four losses, hitting .108/.213/.158/15 wRC+ as a team. “Three of these four days we’ve had the starter out before the fifth inning because we’ve piled up pitch counts, and we’ve had really good at-bats, and we’ve created action — we’re missing some hits right now,” Craig Counsell said, per the Tribune. “We’ve got some guys having good at-bats, they’re not ending up in hits. Some are ending up in walks, and some long at-bats that end up in outs that probably means we’re missing some pitches that we probably need to hit during the course of that. It adds up to some tough offensive games.” And, to be fair? A lot of good pitching. In these four losses, the Cubs have faced the 6th best pitching staff in baseball by ERA (Rangers) and best pitching staff in baseball (Braves). You have to be able to produce more than the Cubs have, without question. But, I’m just saying. The pitchers are out there trying, too. From Elise Menaker on the Liam Hendriks signing:Per Counsell: Hendriks will go to AZ where he’ll ramp up. As soon as he’s at a place where he can compete, he’ll likely go to Iowa and progress from there.
“Essentially depth right now and taking a shot at somebody who’s had a lot of success and and see what happens. But he’s going to have a ways to build up.”
Definitely a new one for me:Don't think I've ever seen this before in baseball.Biscuits outfielder Austin Overn rips a ball down the right field line, right fielder slides over the ball, ball gets lodged into the ground so deep it turns into an inside-the-park home run.Then it takes MULTIPLE players to… pic.twitter.com/LWNvGGYswq
— Davis Baker (@DavisBakerTV) May 14, 2026 Old friend Matt Mervis has signed to play in Mexico, and given the way the ball flies there, I could see him hitting a lot of dingers. Drew Pomeranz is hitting the IL with an elbow issue, which occasioned me to check in on how he’s done with the Angels this year after signing a one-year, $4M deal: 12 ER over 15.0 innings, 16.7% K rate, 11.1% BB rate. Yikes. Great comeback story last year, but the Cubs pretty clearly did the right thing letting him go. Shohei Ohtani pretty clearly decided he’d like to try to win a Cy Young award. He’s been fairly light-hitting this year for his usual self, but on the mound? Good God. He now has a 0.82 ERA over 44.0 innings, with a 29.2% K rate, a 6.4% BB rate, a 2.8% barrel rate, and a 50.9% groundball rate. I like to imagine that he actually did merely decide this offseason, “You know, this year, I think I’m going to go ahead and be a perfect pitcher this season, just to see how it feels.” A completely STUPID Shohei Ohtani fact while we’re here: since 2018, when he made his debut, Ohtani’s 2.83 ERA is second among all pitchers (min. 500 IP). Only Jacob deGrom (2.27) is better. Jacob Misiorowski was incredible, absolutely dominated the Padres, but then this happened in the 9th:HOLY SHEETS!!! pic.twitter.com/BXvli2vI4M
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