Cubs left-hander Shōta Imanaga was off to such a good start this season. Over his first nine starts he posted a 2.32 ERA and allowed just five home runs in 54.1 innings. Maybe, just maybe, he had put the home-run issue from last year in the past?
Well, nope, or so it now seems. Over his last three starts Imanaga has an 11.49 (!) ERA and eight (!) home runs served up in just 15.2 innings. Perhaps needless to say, the Cubs have dropped all three of those games, including Friday’s 6-5 loss to the Cardinals.
Still, the Cubs might have had a chance to win this game if not for yet another bad outing from Phil Maton, who gave St. Louis the insurance run they needed in the eighth. Do the Cubs still score in the ninth if it’s 5-4 instead of 6-4? Pitch sequencing might have been different. Still, Maton dug the hole deeper and that’s exactly what the Cubs did not need.
More on that later. Let’s start at the beginning, which was actually good.
After the first two Cubs grounded out, Michael Busch and Alex Bregman singled.
Then Ian Happ left the yard for the third straight game [VIDEO].
This is classic Happ — cold streaks followed by hot streaks. Here’s hoping the hot streak lasts a while.
What did not last was that lead, as Imanaga gave up the first of the three home runs in the bottom of the first, to, of all people, former Cub Nelson Velázquez. Velázquez was playing his first MLB game since 2024. More on that three-run homer from BCB’s JohnW53:
Shota Imanaga also gave up a three-run homer that wiped out a 3-0 lead last season, on Sept. 25 at home against the Mets.
Of the last 10 three-run shots that came with the Cubs up by three, seven have been with the score 3-0.
Kyle Hendricks and Jameson Taillon did it in 2024, three days apart; Jeremiah Estrada and Justin Steele in 2023; and Adbert Alzolay in 202.
Last night’s was just the third of 88 total three-run homers with a 3-0 lead that came in the bottom of the first. The first was off Kerry Wood, at San Francisco in 2000, and the second off Steve Smyth, at Houston, in 2002.
Smyth’s was the 60th of the 88 such homers.
The Cubs took a 4-3 lead in the second. With one out, Dansby Swanson singled. One out later, he stole second and Nico Hoerner walked.
Michael Busch singled in Swanson [VIDEO].
That’s where the game stayed until the fourth, when St. Louis’ Thomas Saggese homered off Imanaga to make it 4-4. And in the next inning, the Cardinals took a 5-4 lead on the third homer off Imanaga, that one by Ivan Herrera.
Cubs pitchers have allowed 82 home runs, most in MLB (Nationals are second-worst with 79). For individual pitchers, Jameson Taillon has served up 19, four more than anyone else (Zack Littell of the Nats, 15). Third is Brady Singer of the Reds with 14, then Imanaga with 13 (tied with five others, including, of all people, Jacob deGrom). None of this is any good for the Cubs, who rank 18th in fewest runs allowed.
More on all the home runs given up by Cubs pitchers this year from John:
This is the eighth game of the season in which the Cubs have surrendered at least three home runs.
Through the first 58 games of previous seasons, they gave up three or more nine or more times in 10 years and eight in seven, including a year ago.
The most were 11, in 1956, 2000 and 2022.
They did it 10 times in 1999 and 2020, and nine in 1959, 1960, 1966, 1994 and 2017.
After the Cardinals took that fifth-inning lead, the Cubs went down meekly in the sixth and seventh, and also in order after a leadoff single by Seiya Suzuki in the eighth.
Ethan Roberts, who relieved Imanaga with two out in the sixth, retired five of the six Cardinals he faced, two by strikeout. Roberts got helped out by this nice defensive play by Busch [VIDEO].
Roberts has been very effective recently and the Cubs can really use another trustworthy reliever.
That’s in part because Maton has become the opposite of “trustworthy.” What’s a good word for that? Don’t answer that question.
Maton allowed a one-out single to Velázquez, then struck out Alec Burleson. Okay so far, but… two more line-drive singles scored the sixth Cardinals run. Craig Counsell had to call on Hoby Milner to bail out Maton, which he did with an infield popup.
Maton, who Jed Hoyer signed after he had a solid year in 2025 split between the Cardinals and Rangers, has been just awful in 2026. He has a 7.64 ERA (5.10 FIP) in 20 appearances, his walk rate is way up (11.6 percent compared to 9.5 percent last year) and he’s already allowed as many home runs (three) in 17.2 innings as he did all of 2025 in 61.1 innings.
This kind of feels like the relief pitching version of the Trey Mancini signing in 2023 — a two-year deal for a guy who didn’t really rate that sort of contract. The Cubs simply cannot use Maton in any more high-leverage situations and if they do and he does this again, they might have to think about just eating the rest of the deal and letting him go.
The run that Maton allowed turned out to be very important, as the Cubs scored off Cardinals closer Riley O’Brien in the ninth. Pete Crow-Armstrong led off with a double [VIDEO].
PCA advanced to third on a comebacker by Nico that hit O’Brien but went for an out. Then Busch grounded out, scoring PCA [VIDEO].
Bregman came to bat as the potential tying run, but grounded out on the first pitch to end the game [VIDEO].
Now, does that ninth inning go exactly like that if Maton doesn’t give up the run in the eighth? Obviously we’ll never know, but it sure would have been better to go into the ninth down one run instead of two.
Here are Craig Counsell’s postgame comments [VIDEO].
The Cubs will look to even up the series Saturday evening in St. Louis. Ben Brown will start for the Cubs and Kyle Leahy goes for the Cardinals. Game time is 6:15 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Fox-TV (regional — coverage map, scroll down to the bottom of that link). A reminder that if you subscribe to MLB.TV or MLB Extra Innings, you can watch this game via those services even if it’s not on the Fox affiliate in your market. Announcers: Eric Collins, John Smoltz and Ken Rosenthal.
