Shōta Imanaga suggests he’ll get the season opener for the Chicago Cubs in Japan on March 18, which sure seems like the right move for all of baseball:
“It’s my job to start Opening (Day) in Japan, I think I want to keep my responsibility and do well over there.”Shota Imanaga on pitching in his home country of Japan. pic.twitter.com/Z2H9yk38BB
“[Dodgers stars] Shohei Ohtani and [Yoshinobu] Yamamoto, I think they’re going to have a lot bigger cheers,” Imanaga said through an interpreter, per the Sun-Times. “But I want to tell the Japanese fans that hopefully they could cheer me and [Cubs teammate] Seiya Suzuki on as much as they do with them.”
I don’t know that we’ll get an officially official on Imanaga as the day one starter for the Cubs until we’re closer to Opening Day – guys have to stretch out, you have to make sure it’s safe to deploy Imanaga at that time, etc., etc. But the league and the teams and the fans are going to want Shōta Imanaga on the mound first for the Cubs in Japan. That’s just a given.
Imanaga’s two focuses for the season, he tells the Tribune, are getting the strikeouts up and the homers down, as well as controlling the running game. I thought that was an interesting addition from him (strikeouts and homers are obvious), because it wasn’t something I’d looked into before.
Turns out, all Shōta needs to do is keep his strength a strength: per Statcast, he was THE LITERAL BEST pitcher in baseball at helping against the run game, at nine runs worth of value (comprised of reducing stolen bases, leads, extra bases taken, etc.). That’s nearly an extra win right there – not captured by FanGraphs’ WAR – just from him being really good at holding runners. But hey, if he wants to get even better, that’s fine by me.
More from Imanaga on the trip to Japan next month:
Shota Imanaga is excited to show his teammates his home country.
— Andy Martínez (@andy-martinez.bsky.social) 2025-02-11T03:01:25.860Z Read More Details
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