The Cubs survived a ninth-inning Cleveland rally and won the second game of the series.
Wednesday night’s game was not Shōta Imanaga’s finest hour. He served up three home runs.
Wednesday night’s game was not Daniel Palencia’s best save opportunity. He issued a walk and threw a wild pitch and allowed a run.
Despite all that, the Cubs managed just enough runs to hold off the Guardians for a 5-4 win on another beautiful July evening at Wrigley Field.
After a scoreless first, Carlos Santana and Lane Thomas took Imanaga deep back-to-back beginning the top of the second for a 2-0 Cleveland lead. Imanaga hit the next Guardians hitter, Nolan Jones, but recovered to finish off the inning. Cleveland made it 3-0 on another solo homer in the third, this one by David Fry. That matched a career high in homers allowed by Imanaga, done twice last year and now twice in 2025.
This is one thing we were told about Shōta when he first came to MLB, that he could be susceptible to the home run. At least all of those came with the bases empty. More on the homers from BCB’s JohnW53:
Imanaga’s start was the 40th since 1901 in which a Cubs pitcher gave up three runs on three solo homers.
Jameson Taillon had done it on May 14, in a 3-1 loss at home against the Marlins, and Imanaga did it on Sept. 10 of last year, in a 6-3 win at Los Angeles vs. the Dodgers.
Kyle Hendricks did it in 2018 and 2021, and Jon Lester in 2018, for a total of six times in the past 10 seasons.
Hendricks is among five who did it twice. The others are Frank Castillo, Jon Lieber, Mark Prior and Steve Trachsel.
Imanaga is the 29th to do it once and eighth of those since 2000.
The Cubs went right to work getting those runs back in the bottom of the third. Ian Happ led off the inning with a walk and went to second on a single by Kyle Tucker.
Seiya Suzuki’s double scored Happ [VIDEO].
Tucker stopped at third, where fellow All-Star Pete Crow-Armstrong scored him with this infield hit [VIDEO].
Suzuki went to third on that hit and it seemed like the Cubs were primed for a big inning. This time, though, instead of having three runners out on the bases, the next three Cubs (Dansby Swanson, Michael Busch and Carson Kelly) all struck out, ending the inning with the Cubs trailing 3-2.
Imanaga recovered by posting a 1-2-3 fourth, and then the Cubs took the lead in the bottom of the inning. With one out, Matt Shaw beat out an infield ground ball. Happ walked and Tucker hit into a fielder’s choice, putting runners on first and third with two out. Tucker then stole second, putting both runners in scoring position.
That proved important, as Suzuki singled them both in to give the Cubs a 4-3 lead [VIDEO].
PCA’s triple, his fourth, scored Suzuki to make it 5-3, but he overran third and was tagged out.
About the multi-run fourth and fifth innings, from BCB’s JohnW53:
After having scored two runs in the fourth inning and three in the fifth tonight, the Cubs’ total of multiple-run innings this season stands at 114. They have scored a single run in 116, just two more! In their multi-run innings, they have averaged 3.04 runs.
Imanaga continued until one out in the sixth with a runner on base. He was at 81 pitches, so the Cubs clearly still have him on a pitch limit as he ramps back up from missing several weeks with a hamstring injury. Ryan Pressly finished off the inning without incident, despite a walk. Caleb Thielbar threw a scoreless seventh and Brad Keller didn’t allow any runs in the eighth, even though the Guardians had a couple of runners in scoring position.
While all this was going on, the Cubs had considerable traffic on the bases themselves. They had two on with one out in the fifth and could not score — same in the seventh. In the eighth, the Cubs loaded the bases with two out on three straight walks, one of them an intentional pass. But Swanson flied to left to end that inning [VIDEO].
The Cubs wound up leaving 12 runners on base, so they had quite a number of opportunities to extend their lead and didn’t.
That left things to Daniel Palencia, with a save opportunity for the second straight night. Matt Shaw, who’s played so well in the field, had a ball hit by Angel Martinez get past him leading off the ninth. He was given an error. Palencia got the next hitter to pop up to Shaw, but then walked pinch-hitter Bo Naylor. A wild pitch — Palencia’s first of the year! — moved the runners up to second and third. Martinez scored on a sacrifice fly to make it 5-4.
Nervous time! Palencia didn’t seem to have his best control or command early in this inning, but he bore down and got Kyle Manzardo to fly to PCA to end the game [VIDEO].
It wasn’t a pretty victory, but wins are wins, and the Cubs will certainly take it. Imanaga posted a victory despite this not being one of his better games, and so…
Cubs are 30-9 in Shota Imanaga’s 39 MLB starts
— Christopher Kamka (@ckamka) July 3, 2025
That’s 23-6 last year and 7-3 so far this year, if you’re keeping track.
The Brewers split their doubleheader with the Mets, so the Cubs’ lead over them increases to three games. The Cardinals got swept by the Pirates (!) and so trail the Cubs by five. About that Pirates sweep:
the Pirates did not allow a run in this series
there have now been 35 instances of a team shutting out its opponents for an entire series of 3+ games since 1901
3rd by PIT: also 1976, 1903
last 2 before this: SD over COL, April ‘25 & CLE over KC, Aug ’17
— Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) July 2, 2025
The Cardinals are off today before they come to Wrigley on Friday. Let’s hope they continue to forget how to score runs. The Reds split their doubleheader in Boston and now trail the Cubs by 6½ games.
The Cubs go for the series sweep of the Guardians Thursday evening at Wrigley Field. Cade Horton will start for the Cubs and Luis Ortiz goes for Cleveland. Game time is again 7:05 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network (and MLB Network outside the Cubs and Guardians market territories).