Shota Imanaga on Sat, Sep 5, 2026

Imanaga tosses six clean innings, allowing one run with zero walks against the Marlins

On September 5 against the Marlins, Shota Imanaga worked six innings, allowing three hits and one earned run while striking out four and walking none. Measured against his season ERA of 3.91 and WHIP of 1.12, this was a clean, controlled outing that pulled him out of his recent stretch of inconsistency.

Looking back at his last ten starts, Imanaga has been anything but steady: a six-run implosion against the Reds on August 31 and a four-run outing against the Nationals on August 12 were sandwiched around a stretch of two straight scoreless starts against the Pirates on July 26 and the Twins on July 20. Across that ten-start sample his ERA sits at roughly 3.26, and tonight's one-run effort reads as a continuation of that recovering trend rather than an outlier. The platoon splits are worth flagging too: against right-handed hitters he has allowed a .237 average with a .707 OPS, while lefties have hit for a lower .231 average but a notably higher .768 OPS and 11 home runs in just 160 at-bats, compared to 22 in 434 at-bats against righties. In other words, left-handed hitters are making less contact overall but doing considerably more damage when they do connect — a reverse-platoon power trend. Walking nobody tonight suggests his command was sharp enough to avoid exactly the kind of mistake pitches that lefties have punished for extra bases this season.

Unico's take: if Imanaga can keep pairing this zero-walk command with his strikeout stuff, settling into a low-3.00s ERA over his remaining starts looks entirely realistic.