Brewers bash Shota Imanaga, still looking capable of being a team in Cubs’ way
Is this week’s Cubs-Brewers conflict for management of the National League Central simply one other sequence in mid-May?
“There’s definitely some big series in September,” Cubs outfielder Ian Happ stated earlier than the three-game set opened Monday evening at Wrigley Field. “You maybe have a group coming in who you’re close to in the divisional race or close in the standings.
“But early in the season — I know there’s going to be a lot made of this series — it’s another series of baseball.”
The Cubs would possibly suppose that way, however do not inform the Brewers, who introduced their huge bats south to remind everybody they’re still the three-time reigning division champions. With a 9-3 pummeling of their rivals in the groups’ first assembly of the season, they struck a acquainted blow — a number of, in truth — towards Cubs starter Shota Imanagabringing to thoughts the beatdowns they handed out final October once they knocked out the Cubs.
In Game 2 of the NL Division Series, Imanaga allowed 4 runs and two homers and was gone after simply eight outs. Monday was worse. The Japanese southpaw was tagged for eight runs and 9 hits, together with a pair of moonshot homers off the right-field video board. I’ve lasted 4 „ innings, a uncommon 2026 clunker.
“Shota just didn’t have a good night,” supervisor Craig Counsell he stated. “He just didn’t have real good command — the command that he usually has… It was, frankly, not being able to put the ball where he wanted to put it.”
Through an interpreter, Imanaga gave this evaluation: “Overall, their game plan overcame my skills.”
Hasn’t that so usually been the case for the small-market Brewers in their latest matchups with the Cubs? Even with the Cubs’ offseason spending and World Series targets, it was still Brewers on prime.
“The Brewers are the team that’s won the division for the last three years — that’s what we want to do,” Counsell stated. “Last year, they beat us, and they had a fabulous season. We’ve got to improve to get there.”
Fixing Phil
Relief Phil Maton was maybe the largest addition as Jed Hoyer’s entrance workplace remade the Cubs’ bullpen final winter. But thus far, he has been a huge bugaboo on a pitching employees that already has no scarcity of query marks.
Maton, whose two-year, $14.5 million contract makes him the highest-paid member of the aid corps, coughed up the go-ahead three-run homer Sunday in the eighth inning of the Cubs’ loss to the White Sox, his newest bumpy outing. It was the sixth time in 14 appearances this season he has allowed a couple of run.
The 10-year veteran had figured to be dependable, with a 3.33 ERA throughout his earlier 4 seasons. Instead, he has a 9.49 ERA halfway via his second month as a Cub.
“I’m incredibly frustrated,” Maton stated Monday. “You’re brought over here, and there’s a lot of responsibility to not only pitch well but get the game going in the right direction. And I feel there’s been lots of situations where Craig’s trusted me in tight ballgames and I just haven’t gotten it done. That’s the hardest part.”
Counsell stated it is a matter of restoring Maton’s confidence so he can ship in the kinds of conditions the Cubs envisioned once they added him.
“Phil got burned by some off-speed pitches earlier in the season, and it’s made him a little gun-shy with some of his best pitches,” Counsell stated. “We’ve got to get him back to full confidence in his full repertoire.”
