{"id":77132,"date":"2025-07-20T04:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T04:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/77132\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T04:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T04:37:08","slug":"chicago-cubs-beat-boston-red-sox-6-0-behind-shota-imanaga-5-hrs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/77132\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Cubs beat Boston Red Sox 6-0 behind Shota Imanaga, 5 HRs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shota Imanaga pitched twice in seven days against the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox.<\/p>\n

The left-hander racked up two wins, allowing a combined one run on seven hits with two walks and 11 strikeouts in 14 innings against the two storied teams.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of the best pitchers in the world,\u201d Cubs first baseman Michael Busch said of Imanaga.<\/p>\n

And the Cubs are the best team in Major League Baseball after Imanaga tossed seven shutout innings Saturday night in a 6-0 win over the Red Sox in front of 40,703 at Wrigley Field.<\/p>\n

The Cubs (59-39) hit five solo home runs to back Imanaga in surpassing the Detroit Tigers (59-40) for the majors\u2019 best record.<\/p>\n

Leadoff hitter Busch hit the first pitch from Brayan Bello for his 20th home run of the season. Four pitches later, Kyle Tucker went deep for his 18th. Matt Shaw (third), Pete Crow-Armstrong (26th) and Ian Happ (13th) added late blasts to pad the lead and guarantee a series win.<\/p>\n

The Red Sox (53-47) came to Wrigley on Friday riding a 10-game winning streak but have managed only one run in 18 innings. The Cubs won the opener 4-1<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Red Sox leadoff hitter Rob Refsnyder greeted Imanaga (7-3) with a first-pitch double, but Alex Bregman grounded out, then Imanaga struck out Romy Gonzalez and Roman Anthony to end the inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s mentally tough when that first pitch gets hit \u2014 especially for a double,\u201d Imanaga said through an interpreter. \u201cAt that moment, I thought that it\u2019s OK if I gave up a run. It\u2019s more important to stack up outs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cubs are 32-10 in Imanaga\u2019s starts over two seasons.<\/p>\n

\n

Photos: Chicago Cubs beat Boston Red Sox 6-0 at Wrigley Field<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an honor to have those numbers,\u201d Imanaga, 31, said. \u201cBut there are times when you don\u2019t have a great outing because I have great teammates. I\u2019m not scared if I have a bad outing because there will be people there to pick me up.\u201d<\/p>\n

There have been few bad outings for the Japanese star.<\/p>\n

Imanaga was on the injured list from May 5 to June 26 with a strained left hamstring<\/a>. In five starts since, he has pitched even better than he did before the injury, going 4-1 with a 1.78 ERA.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, when you miss six or seven weeks, you don\u2019t expect to come back in peak form,\u201d Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. \u201cIt happens, but it\u2019s hard to do. But he\u2019s pitched really well.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s the nature of pitching. You get locked in for 90 pitches and the next start doesn\u2019t promise you anything. You have to get locked in again. Shota is just so good at getting people out.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Cubs could not match their record eight-home-run performance<\/a> against the St. Louis Cardinals on July 4, the five-homer game was still impressive. It\u2019s the fifth time this season they hit five or more home runs in a game.<\/p>\n

Jeff Vorva is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shota Imanaga pitched twice in seven days against the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. The left-hander…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":77133,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[1281,960,1271,1816,5604,5386,1818,5605,30300,5606,1277,5435],"class_list":{"0":"post-77132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-boston-red-sox","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-craig-counsell","12":"tag-ian-happ","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-illinois","15":"tag-kyle-tucker","16":"tag-matt-shaw","17":"tag-michael-busch","18":"tag-pete-crow-armstrong","19":"tag-shota-imanaga"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114883713148054896","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77132\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}