CHICAGO – All Shota Imanaga could do after the ball nicked off the end of his glove was turn and watch. And from his vantage point on the mound, the Cubs' lefty saw shortstop Dansby Swanson in position to react to the ricochet.
Swanson scooped up the third-inning grounder from Arizona’s Ketel Marte and fired to first for the out, offering a snapshot of how the Cubs pulled off their 2-0 win on Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Imanaga relied on generating weak contact and did so with precision en route to a fourth consecutive win for the North Siders.
“If there’s a ball hit that’s behind me, it’s going to be an out,” Imanaga said via his interpreter, Edwin Stanberry. “Everybody has fantastic defense, but on top of the defense, they have great positioning as well.”
The win was the 10th in a row at home for the Cubs, marking their longest streak at the Friendly Confines since a 14-game run from May 18-June 22, 2008.
The lone run that Chicago managed off D-backs righty Ryne Nelson arrived in the second inning, when Ian Happ slugged an 0-1 fastball out to right for a leadoff homer. The blast – one with a Statcast-projected exit velocity of 110.6 mph – was Happ’s eighth homer of the season. This is the earliest on the calendar that Happ has reached that total in a season.
Happ finished a single short of a cycle and also accounted for the Cubs’ insurance run. In the eighth, the left fielder tripled to right-center field off Juan Morillo and then scored on a sacrifice fly from Seiya Suzuki.
That was all the help Imanaga required.
“He pitched really wonderfully,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “He was mixing up everything. … He pitched really, really well. He’s pitching at a really high level and he’s executing at a really high level.”
Imanaga finished with seven shutout innings – a solid bounceback outing after giving up four runs in a road loss to the Dodgers last time out. This outing was closer to the four outings prior to that one in Los Angeles in which he turned in a tidy 1.13 ERA. Now, Imanaga has a 2.40 ERA with 43 strikeouts and just 10 walks in 41 1/3 innings.
How Imanaga navigated this start against Arizona was a little different.
At the start of the game, Imanaga was leaning heavily on his four-seamer, but then flipped the usage with catcher Miguel Amaya as the innings went on. After using his heater 59% of the time the first time through the order, Imanaga dropped the rate to just 8% the third time through. His splitter use climbed from 41% (first time through) to 50% (second) to 72% (third).
“There were scenarios where I picked that I wanted to throw a splitter,” Imanaga said. “And there were scenarios where Miggy picked that the splitter was the better choice. … Based on the flow of the game, and based on which pitch was the lowest risk for damage, that’s kind of how it ended up.”
Not only did Imanaga create 12 of his 14 swinging strikes via his signature splitter, the lefty also increasingly got outs on the ground. After having four groundball outs across the first five innings, Imanaga induced six groundouts in his final two frames. Five came courtesy of Swanson.
Swanson had the heads-up play on the Marte grounder in the third, but then dropped jaws with another highlight-reel gem in the sixth. Geraldo Perdomo sent an 0-2 splitter from Imanaga up the middle, where Swanson ranged to his left and leaned down to glove the grounder. The shortstop spun and fired while on the move, getting Perdomo at first by a step.
“That spin throw,” Happ said, “I get a really good view of it, but his ability to find first base there and make a strong throw – I’ve seen so many of those plays from over the years – it never ceases to amaze me.”
Ben Brown handled the final two innings for the Cubs and saw Swanson record the final three outs. That included one more highlight out: a backhanded stab at a sharp grounder from Corbin Carroll, complete with the strong throw to first.
Swanson’s nine assists were the most by a Cubs fielder in a game since Nico Hoerner posted the same total on June 23, 2022.
“I had a lot of opportunities today. It might set a record for me,” Swanson said with a laugh. “But it’s a lot of fun. And it’s fun when the pitchers are working quick and filling up the zone. It kind of allows the defense to be more in tune with the game. Shota and Benny were great.”