– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
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BALTIMORE — Before taking the national stage next week, Shota Imanaga put together one last electric outing to whet the appetite of baseball fans around the world … and did so against one of the best offenses in the game, no less.
Imanaga rebounded from a couple of shaky starts to throw six scoreless innings, leading the Cubs to a 4-0 victory over the Baltimore Orioles inside Oriole Park at Camden Yards on Wednesday evening. Christopher Morel’s solo home run off Baltimore’s ace, Corbin Burnes, was the only run the Cubs would need as the top three batters in Chicago’s lineup tonight — Nico Hoerner, Michael Busch and Cody Bellinger — each had two hits, with Hoerner and Busch both driving in a run and scoring a run.
Chicago has won the first two games of the series, giving the Cubs their first three-game winning streak since April 23-26 and ensuring the Cubs will win back-to-back series since the week before that streak in mid-April.
April was when Imanaga was at the peak of his powers in the States after coming over from Japan, winning four his first five starts while allowing just a grand total of three earned runs in the month. His numbers have been more than respectable after that, but a June 21 outing against the Mets, where he allowed 10 runs and 11 hits in just three innings, was the clearest sign that fatigue might have been catching up with the Rookie of the Year candidate.
Before going into this week, Cubs manager Craig Counsell decided to switch Imanaga and Jameson Taillon’s spots in the rotation, with the off day on Monday allowing the latter to go on regular rest yesterday while Imanaga got an extra day — and the benefit of his start tonight being the last during the first half of the season instead of Sunday. The extra rest proved to make a big difference.
*Editor’s note: Above the byline is the photo gallery from Tuesday evening’s game, with photos taken by ALOST staff photographer Yusuf Abdullah. After clicking on a photo to enlarge the picture, press the left and right arrow buttons on either side of the caption to scroll through the rest of the pictures that appear on the first page, Also, click on the numbers and/or arrow appearing immediately below the picture grid to load the next set of photos. There are 18 pictures in total.
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