On May 1, Shōta Imanaga, the scintillating rookie who not only has been garnering NL Rookie of the Year hype, but Cy Young hype as well, turned in perhaps the best start of his major league career against the Mets. The Cubs’ sensation hurled seven shutout innings, scattering three hits and striking out seven Mets to pick up his fifth win in his sixth big league start.
Over his first 13 starts, he had never faced a team twice, until today when he took the hill at Wrigley Field against the Mets. It’s hard to say for sure whether that contributed to the Mets erupting for ten earned runs over three-plus innings against Imanaga, but New York’s bats looked considerably more comfortable against the left-hander than they did back on May 1. By the end of this one, the Rookie of the Year frontrunner saw his ERA climb from 1.89 all the way up to 2.96. That resulted in an 11-1 Mets win over Chicago.
New York jumped out to a 3-0 lead three batters into the game and never looked back. Francisco Lindor kicked things off with a double into the left field corner. Brandon Nimmo followed with a walk to put two runners on. Nimmo walking is nothing new, but it was noteworthy because Imanaga had only walked 11 batters in 13 starts. J.D. Martinez followed up with a three-run bomb to dead center that gave the Mets an early lead.
José Quintana gave the Mets his best start of 2024 around the same time as Imanaga’s start against the Mets. Quintana dominated the Cardinals back on April 28, going eight innings and allowing one run on three hits. It was the only time the left-hander had pitched into the seventh innings...until today. Quintana did struggle at the start, loading the bases with no outs in the first on a Nico ho*rner walk, a Mark Vientos error that allowed Seiya Suzuki to reach, and a Cody Bellinger walk.
However, he induced a Christopher Morel double play, which gave Chicago a run but gave him his first two outs. He then stranded the runner at third and would not allow another run to score for the remainder of the game. After setting a season high for strike outs with six against the Padres his last time out, he surpassed that by punching out eight Cubbies.
While Chicago missed a golden opportunity to score and draw closer in the bottom half of the first, the Mets did not miss out on their many scoring chances, adding three more runs to the board in the second inning behind a solo homer from Francisco Alvarez and a two-run bomb by Brandon Nimmo. It was, again, startling, since Imanaga had only allowed seven home runs in his first 13 starts before serving up three long balls this afternoon.
The Mets added another run in the third after Pete Alonso led off with a double, Starling Marte singled him to third, and Jose Igelesias drove him home. They added two more in the fourth after a Lindor double, a Nimmo single, a Martinez run-scoring single, an Alonso walk, and a Marte run-scoring force out.
One of the more fascinating stats about this game was that it represented the first time in franchise history that the Mets had the first two batters of an inning reach in each of the first four innings of a game. In fact, the last time that happened in the majors was in 2019, when the Yankees did it against the Giants. The Mets almost did it in five straight innings to lead off the game, but Nimmo struck out after Lindor led off with his third hit in five frames.
Things calmed down from there on the offensive side of things for New York, but Quintana kept Chicago from getting back into it. Quintana hurled 6 1⁄3 stellar innings, and Adam Ottavino labored from there but got the next five outs. Drew Smith shut the door in the ninth to secure the victory and get the Mets back in the win column after seeing their seven-game winning streak come to an end on Wednesday.
This is an especially important win, because the Mets now have three victories against the Cubs in four contests. One more win would give them a potential tie-breaker at the end of the season. That next victory could come tomorrow or on Sunday, but a win in either will give them that all-important advantage over the Cubs in a packed Wild Card race. They’ll turn to Tylor Megill tomorrow against Jameson Taillon as they look to take the season series against Chicago.
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:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25501105/chart.png "Mets 11, Cubs 1—Mets hammer Imanaga, Cubs to take series opener (1)")
What’s WPA?
Big Mets winner: J.D. Martinez, 18.0% WPA
Big Mets loser: Mark Vientos, -3.6% WPA
Mets pitchers: 2.4% WPA
Mets hitters: 47.6% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: J.D. Martinez three-run homer in the first 17.7% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Cody Bellinger single in the bottom of the first, -7.8% WPA
