Shōta Imanaga Bringing Rock, Paper, Scissors to Sword Fight
The season-opening series between the Cubs and Dodgers will feature several members of Samurai Japan, the star-studded national baseball team, two of whom will face off right out of the gate. Despite a decidedly heavy Dodgers bias in terms of fan preference and official merchandise, the Cubs are the designated home team for the two games in Tokyo. That means Shota Imanaga will be on the bump with Shohei Ohtani leading off.
Pretty serious disrespect by @MLB to the @Cubs, Shota, Seiya, Roko and Yoshinobu #tokyoseries store at Tokyo Dome is basically a Dodgers-Ohtani store. One rack of Cubs hats. One blank road jersey. Some towels. That’s it. pic.twitter.com/rE6yhTDOmP
— MBDChicago (@MBDChicago) March 17, 2025
Asked by a Japanese reporter whether he’d established a plan for his first pitch to the best player on the planet, Imanaga displayed yet again why he’s an international treasure who should be protected at all costs.
“If I say the first pitch,” Imanaga joked, “it’s like I’m saying ‘scissors’ in rock, paper, scissors — so, I can’t say. But I can probably say the 25th pitch. Paper.”
Great strategy if the Dodgers are swinging rocks, but paper may not be very effective if Ohtani and others are swinging samurai swords like the one Seiya Suzuki showed off earlier in the trip. Take that, Beatrix Kiddo. Then again, slicing a ball in half would be a much better outcome than seeing it sail into the Tokyo Dome’s cheap seats. Giving up the longball has been an issue for Imanaga in the past and remained so last season as he was seventh-highest among qualified pitchers with 1.40 HR/9 and 10th with 27 dingers surrendered.
While giving up three pumps over as many spring starts can be chalked up to the desert air and working through rust or making adjustments, LA’s lineup affords zero margin for error. Of course, the thing about succeeding despite a penchant for giving up contact in the air is that you’ve got to be very good at other facets of your craft. For Imanaga, that means generating a ton of chase while still being an elite strike-thrower.
The lefty’s high-ride fastball and disappearing splitter got batters to chase at a 34.8% clip, putting him in the 97th percentile among his peers last season. His 4.0% walk rate ranked the same, and Dusty Baker surely admired the way Imanaga didn’t clog the bases. It’s also worth noting that, contrary to what the homers might otherwise indicate, Imanaga actually limited barrels and hard hits to a great degree. He just gives up a lot of balls in the air, some of which are going to carry.
After an MLB debut season that saw him dial down four of his secondaries — changeup, curve, sinker, cutter — I’m interested to see whether and how the Cubs have Imanga spread things around a little more. His four-seam/split combo made up over 80% of his repertoire and was obviously very effective, but the sinker, sweeper, and change all had positive value despite very limited usage. His cutter was ditched altogether and I wonder whether it might make sense as an alternative to the curve that didn’t grade out well.
Even though we won’t be able to draw many conclusions from his first outing, let alone his first pitch to Ohtani, waking up early to watch Imanaga in the season opener will give us some clues as to what he’s looking to do this year.
