Following a stellar performance against the Mets at Citi Field in Queens in a 1-0 win for Chicago on Wednesday night, where he surrendered three hits and walked one while striking out seven over seven innings of work to lower his league-leading ERA to 0.78, Cubs left-handed rookie Shota Imanaga was asked how it felt to be pitching under the bright lights of New York City for the first time.
“The view from the hotel, I recognize it from Spider-Man,” Imanaga said via his interpreter after pitching on four days of rest for the first time in his brief career in the big leagues. “So I was like, ‘Oh, this is where Spider-Man was.’”
He’s an appropriate hero for Imanaga to reference, as the 30-year-old rookie has been nothing short of amazing in his first six MLB starts since coming over from Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball after pitching for the Yokohama BayStars for the past eight years and accumulating a lifetime 3.18 ERA.
In his young MLB career, Imanaga has been even more unhittable, as he stepped to the rubber on Wednesday as the first pitcher in Major League history since at least 1901 to go 4-0 with an ERA under 1.00 in his first five career starts. After blanking the Mets over seven innings despite having a fastball that topped out at just 93.4 mph, Imanaga is 5-0 across 34.2 innings with 35 strikeouts and a 0.75 WHIP and now one of only 10 pitchers in the live-ball era to post an ERA of 1.00 or less while throwing at least 30 innings in his first six career starts.
Again, amazing.
What’s perhaps even more spectacular for the Cubs than the way Imanaga is pitching is what Chicago is paying him to do so as the Japanese hurler has a contract that is worth peanuts compared to what the Los Angeles Dodgers paid his countryman Yoshinobu Yamamoto to come to America to pitch for them in 2024.
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Somewhat amazingly, Boston is 13-10 thus far in 2024Signed to a 12-year, $325 million contract with the Dodgers that is fully guaranteed and included a $50 million signing bonus, Yamamoto will carry an average annual salary of $27 million and change for more than a decade. For the most part, he’s been worth it as the Japanese star has pitched well after being roughed up by the Padres in his first outing on March 21 in South Korea and is now 3-1 on the season with 2.91 ERA across seven starts.
However, Imanaga has given the Cubs far better bang for far fewer bucks as he carries an average annual salary of just $13.25 million and is only signed to a four-year deal that includes some option years and puts the Cubs on the hook for $53 million, at the most. It’ll be money well-earned for Imanaga and money well-spent for the Cubs.
Imanaga will take the ball next against the Padres when the Cubs return to Wrigley Field for their next homestand.
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