ATLANTA -- With every Shota Imanaga cleat print on the mound digging deeper into the dirt, one thing became clearer: the Braves' bats would go a bit quieter than usual Wednesday night against him during the Cubs’ 4-1 loss at Truist Park.
The day before, the left-hander went through game situations on the mound, throwing pretend pitches while imagining what the view would look like with runners on base and while getting ready to throw to his battery mate, Carson Kelly, something Imanaga likes to do due to limited access to the mound on the road
Atlanta entered as one of baseball’s best clubs against left-handed pitching, carrying a Major League-leading .270 average against southpaws along with 76 runs scored and a .769 OPS that ranked fifth in the league.
In the second of a three-game series, Imanaga held that offense to two runs while striking out six batters through seven-plus innings on 96 pitches.
“Reflecting on my outing today, if I didn't give up any runs, then the Cubs would have had a chance to win,” Imanaga said via interpreter Edwin Stanberry. “I should have kept them to zero.”
A solo homer in the fourth inning and a single in the eighth were still heavily on his mind after the game.
“If you see the at-bat, there's a slider that [Drake Baldwin] swung at that was outside the zone,” Imanaga said. “I think that slider he hit a homer on, that was closer to the zone. He put a good swing on it, but I also didn't execute my [pitch].”
The Cubs left-hander came in with a 4-1 record and a 2.01 ERA over his previous five starts.
Part of Imanaga’s success this season has come from an uptick in velocity across his five-pitch arsenal. His four-seamer has averaged 91.9 mph this season after sitting at 90.8 mph last year, while his split-finger has ticked up from 83.0 mph to 83.3 mph.
He attributes that jump to being healthy and getting to know his body more while continuing to learn how that can translate into increased velocity.
“My velo is up. I mean, it's not like up by like, five miles an hour or anything,” Imanaga said. “But I think if I was gonna say one [other] thing is looking at Trackman data.”
“Based on how my body's moving at the moment, there might be a difference between what the numbers are showing versus how I'm feeling,” he added. “So I think just the feel of my pitching mechanics.”
The improvement that Kelly is seeing from Imanaga is also his consistency, which has come from several small tweaks he worked on during the offseason. Kelly also pointed to Imanaga’s ability to make adjustments mid-game if a pitch isn’t working.
“[He] added a little bit of the sinker [this year], he had a little bit last year, but a little bit more command with that,” Kelly said. “And just all in all, he took what he did last year -- did well, didn't do so well -- and just made some adjustments.”
Imanaga's fastball/splitter combo remains the foundation of his arsenal, with his sweeper following. Imanaga has shown a willingness to consecutively throw the splitter before the fastball, using his offspeed pitches to set up the heater. Three of his strikeouts against Atlanta came on his four-seamer.
The approach had produced stronger underlying numbers for the 32-year-old. He has thrown pitches in the strike zone at a 43% clip this season after sitting at 54% in 2025, but hitters have chased more often, with his chase rate jumping from 31.5% to 39.9%. His strikeout rate has also climbed from 20% to 28.3% coming into the game.
That trend continued against Atlanta, with 29% of Imanaga's pitches generating a whiff or being called a strike.
“Shota was awesome against a team that's been that good offensively,” manager Craig Counsell said. “To shut them down into the eighth inning … he pitched wonderfully.
“He did a great job, and it's a shame we couldn't just do a little more on the other side of the ball to get him some runs."
Imanaga exited after Nico Hoerner's flipped ball put Michael Harris Jr. on in the eighth inning, and the Braves broke away with Mike Yastrzemski's RBI double and Mauricio Dubón's two-run blast.