Shota Imanaga Keeps Dealing At the Top of the Cubs’ Rotation

For the second straight season, Shota Imanaga took the bump to open up the Chicago Cubs‘ home slate.

Manager Craig Counsell joked Friday morning that, going into his second season on the North Side, he tried to make the home opener feel identical to last year’s. That meant, like he did April 1, 2024, he had Imanaga be the first Cub to throw a pitch at Wrigley Field in 2025.

Again, Counsell was kidding, but Imanaga sure helped make the home opener feel like it did a year ago anyway.

Last season, he kicked things off with nine strikeouts over six scoreless innings, even flirting with a no-hitter for 5 2/3 innings. He followed that up a year later with 7 1/3 innings of one-run ball, four strikeouts and no walks. The result? A 3-1 win for the Cubs over the San Diego Padres.

It was just another day where Imanaga gave the fans a pitching performance to admire. And when he walked off the mound in the top of the eighth, the 40,244 in attendance awarded him with a standing ovation.

“I think I previously said here, the roar of the crowd, I wanted to turn that into my alarm, that way I can get up right away,” Imanaga said via interpreter Edwin Stanberry. “But that was a big mistake. I feel like, if I did that, I would show up to the field late, because I’d want to continue to listen to the roar of the crowd.”

Imanaga didn’t find himself in much trouble Friday afternoon. The lone blemish came when Padres catcher Martín Maldonado laced a solo homer to left field in the third inning.

He did have some help along the way. Pete Crow-Armstrong made a big catch in the second — hitting the brick, ivy-less wall afterward — to keep San Diego shortstop Xander Bogaerts out of scoring position. A 6-2-5 rundown of Padres second baseman Jake Cronenworth in the fifth kept another run off the board.

Outside of that, it was a pretty smooth day for the 31-year-old southpaw.

“He was fantastic,” Ian Happ said. “He filled up the zone, did a really good job of throwing strikes and not giving them any free passes. Making them hit the baseball on a day like today is really tough. Commands the ball really well, pitched around the guys that he had to and just a lot of weak contact, and that’s who he is.”

“He was in a couple of tighter situations and made the right pitch, we made the right play. I feel like you tend to see that a lot with Shota,” Crow-Armstrong said. “It’s always pretty clean baseball. It’s rarely that hard of contact regularly or anything like that.

“I say it a lot, but Shota just gives us a chance to make plays, and I think that we have a really good team for that. Shota did what Shota does. He got us involved, and that’s all we can kind of really ask for from him.”

Thus far, Imanaga has looked just as good to begin is sophomore season as he did a year ago.

He owns a 0.98 ERA through his first three starts, fifth lowest among qualified starters after Friday. Also after Friday, a major league starter has gone seven-plus innings in a start 19 times in 2025. Imanaga is the only one who’s done it twice.

He even ended his first start in Tokyo, when he uncharacteristically walked a career-high four batters, with four hitless frames. Maybe one thing to monitor is his strikeout rate this season (14.7 percent) being down from last year (25.1 percent). But the year is still so young.

It’s otherwise been another stellar early-season showing from Imanaga. And that’s despite the fact he’s already faced the Padres, the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers.

“It’s just a good pitcher,” Counsell said. “He’s making pitches, and that’s what it’s about. He makes a pitch, and then he makes another pitch and he makes another pitch. He doesn’t make mistakes, and that’s a pretty good formula.”

Through 18 1/3 innings over three starts, Imanaga has only allowed two earned runs. In his rookie year, he gave up just a single, unearned run through his first three outings.

So yeah, Friday felt pretty similar to Counsell’s first Cubs home opener. The start of Imanaga’s season has mirrored the beginning to those two’s first season in Chicago, too. And remember, through his first nine outings in 2024, Imanaga had posted a 0.84 ERA. That was the lowest mark through a pitcher’s first nine starts since ERA became an official stat in 1913.

If the beginning of his 2025 is indicative of a repeat performance, that’s a big boost to the Cubs’ hopes to get back to the postseason.

“Obviously last year, I think he had a really good year, and he’s continued that so far this year,” Kyle Tucker said. “He didn’t pitch against us [Tucker’s former team, the Houston Astros] last year, so I was just seeing highlights and everything online, which it was basically every time he went out. He’s done a phenomenal job ever since he’s come over here.”