All-Star rookie Shota Imanaga's historic first half helps Chicago Cubs battle the blahs

BALTIMORE – Ostensibly, the Chicago Cubs have what the marketing folks like to say is one of the most iconic brands in professional sports. For the moment, though, they have something of an identity crisis.

Are these Cubs defined by their fourth-to-last place standing in the National League – or by virtue of residing 3 ½ games out of a playoff spot?

Are they the similarly nondescript group that posted the identical record – 43-49 – through 92 games a year ago? Or the one that eventually kicked it into gear to win 83 games and fall just short of a playoff spot, the manager paying with his job?

Buy or sell?

Shota Imanaga or Mike Imanaga?

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Wait, what?

Yeah, it’s a bit of a weird time to be a Cub, what with the franchise mired in six years of mediocrity, the club still backfilling from years of relative neglect and the glow of the historic 2016 World Series fading with each passing season.

Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez are all long gone, with just starter Kyle Hendricks left from that roster. Heck, the guys who simply played with the curse-busting greats of 2016 are growing thinner.

So here they are – tied with Cincinnati in the NL Central cellar, yet with a fascinating 30-year-old rookie, a handful of high-priced free agents, a $40 million manager and opportunity in front of them.

Who are you, Cubs? They’re about to let us know.

“In ’17, all those guys won the World Series together. I came into a group that had played together, that was their third year and all the consistency that comes with it,” left fielder Ian Happ tells USA TODAY Sports of his rookie year with the defending champions.

“This group, it’s our second year together. I think that identity gets made by the players in the group. Sure, there’s the manager change that goes into it, but we play a good brand of baseball, and we try to be as clean as we can.”

That’s not exactly an elevator pitch to bedazzle ticket buyers and network executives. But it's enough of a building block to keep the Cubs on the playoff fence - and perhaps keep the gang together past the July 30 trade deadline.

Be like Mike

Justin Steele had to see it for himself.

As he and his family visited a Starbucks in Baltimore this week, he noticed Cubs rookie Shota Imanaga waiting for an order. So he awaited the moment the barista shouted out the left-hander’s drink.

“Mike!”

Sure enough, Imanaga lived up to the legend that, as he tired of hearing his first name mispronounced when ordering his usual - a flat white, the size depending on his mood, he tells USA TODAY Sports through an interpreter - he developed an alternate identity employees could not mess up.  

The Cubs played along, producing a “Mike Imanaga II” nameplate for his locker. It made for good content, but also spoke to Imanaga’s utter comfort on the mound and in the streets of Chicago since debuting after eight professional seasons in Japan.

“The most impressive thing is how he’s come over to this country and been so comfortable the entire time,” says Steele, the Cubs’ opening-day starter. “Really putting himself out there, learning the language, going out and about without his translator, having conversations with everybody without his translator.

“It shows himself how committed he is to this process. He’s fully put himself into this culture. He loves it here. It’s awesome how he’s been so comfortable right away.”

Imanaga was proactive, quoting from the "Go, Cubs, Go" victory anthem in his introductory news conference in January, and using spring training's latitude to connect with teammates. Yet it's been a symbiotic relationship.

"Obviously, I was trying to fit in, but the fact that everybody – the support staff, my teammates – were willing to accept me, that feeling was a lot bigger than my want to fit in," Imanaga said Wednesday. "The environment allowing me to fit in super easily, I think that helped me a lot."

It didn't hurt that he’s had an historic start to his major league career.

Imanaga was 4-0 with a 0.98 ERA after five starts and had a 0.84 ERA through nine starts, the lowest through that span for a rookie pitcher since they could track these things in 1913.

Sure, the league adjusted back a bit – the Brewers pelted him for seven runs in 4 ⅓ innings, the Mets 10 earned runs in three – but the Cubs are nonetheless 13-4 in his starts.

Toss out those two duds, and Imanaga’s ERA is 1.51. And after throwing six shutout innings against the potent Baltimore Orioles on Wednesday night, Imanaga will take a 2.97 ERA into the All-Star Game – where he’ll be the Cubs’ lone representative.

“I think Shot has continued to take the feedback the league gives him and is great at making those little adjustments start to start,” says Cubs manager Craig Counsell, lured to Chicago from the rival Milwaukee Brewers on a five-year, $40 million deal. “He’s very open minded. His curiosity is one of his best traits and I think that’s served him well.

“A little bit of that is probably why guys choose to come here. You’re making the jump to the next league. You want to test yourself. You want to be curious. You want to play against the best, consistently. But anybody who’s had a lot of success, it’s really easy to say, this is how I’ve done it. I think for growth-minded people, like I think Shota is, you have to question that success."

Imanaga gets by largely on two pitches – a fastball he runs up to 94 mph, but fiddles with the velocity, and a split-finger pitch that garners significant chase out of the zone.

Wednesday, he finished his night with a flourish, striking out Austin Hays looking on a 93 mph fastball, and Jorge Moateo flailing at a 84 mph splitter off the outer half.

To end a fabulous first half, with the All-Star Game looming.

“I want to pay back to all the guys who have supported me, around me. The chance I get to be in the All-Star game, it’s to take the opportunity to give back," Imanaga says of his trip to Arlington, Texas for Tuesday's game.

"If I get the opportunity to pitch, I’d like to."

Not-so 'gloom and doom'

Imanaga alone doesn't give this group an identity but if there is one, it's increasingly forged by their starting pitching, now sporting three arms with ERAs less than 3. Right-hander Jameson Taillon has been a rock in this, his second season in Chicago, on a run of six consecutive quality starts to trim his ERA to 2.99. Steele returned from an opening-day injury and now has a 2.95 ERA in 16 starts.

“It’s nice when it all lines up,” says Taillon. “I feel like we’ve kind of been chasing each other. We won’t hit, we’ll pitch. We won’t pitch, we’ll hit. Hopefully, we can just stay right there.”

Says Happ: “Starting pitching has really defined our ’24 season, as good as those guys have been. We’re just trying to help them out as best we can.”

Happ has done his part, on a 23 for 73 (.315) run the past 22 games, with seven homers. Rookie first baseman Michael Busch has six hits the past two nights, helping the Cubs take the series off the Orioles, and now has a .365 OBP, 12 homers and a .841 OPS.

Suddenly, the Cubs are 44-49, a smidge ahead of last year’s pace. They’ve won five of their eight games in July, and will finish the half with four relatively large games in St. Louis.

It is not optimal, but far from disastrous, and perhaps the dark clouds ostensibly hovering may brighten by the time the trade deadline arrives.

“To see we had the same record at this point as we did last year, it’s kind of like, ‘Wow, we’re in the same spot as last year. It’s really not that bad,’” says Steele. “Everything can kind of seem gloom and doom because of exterior noises, but just to know we’re in the same exact spot as last year it’s like well, that’s reassuring.

“Nobody’s blind or deaf in here. We see the news. We see what everybody’s talking about. We see it, but the amount we pay attention to it, I’d say isn’t very much.”

Or, as outfielder Cody Bellinger puts it: "It’s way more fun when it’s like this. During the tough times, we all believed in each other.

"Just gotta keep on going."