{"id":698491,"date":"2026-05-14T06:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/698491\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T06:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:00:18","slug":"chicago-cubs-fall-to-atlanta-braves-4-1-for-4th-straight-loss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/698491\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Cubs fall to Atlanta Braves 4-1 for 4th straight loss"},"content":{"rendered":"

ATLANTA \u2014 Shota Imanaga holds himself to high standards.<\/p>\n

Even when facing the best offense in baseball, Imanaga\u2019s standard doesn\u2019t change. Yet he wasn\u2019t satisfied by his stellar outing in the Chicago Cubs\u2019 4-1 loss Wednesday to the Atlanta Braves despite the lefty pitching into the eighth inning and departing in a tie game. The Braves tagged reliever Phil Maton for three runs in the eighth, including one he inherited from Imanaga, to send the Cubs (27-16) to their season-high fourth consecutive loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cReflecting on my outing today, if I didn\u2019t give up any runs then the Cubs would have had a chance to win,\u201d Imanaga said through interpreter Edwin Stanberry. \u201cSo when I\u2019m looking back at it, I should have kept them to zero.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chicago Cubs and veteran reliever Liam Hendriks agree to minor-league deal \u2014 and Phil Maton is on a roll<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Imanaga got into a groove in the middle of the game, using an inning-ending double play in the fourth to spark a stretch of 10 consecutive retired batters. Michael Harris II\u2019s leadoff single in the eighth ended Imanaga\u2019s efficient night. Opposing hitters are batting .183 off Imanaga this year, the seventh-lowest average allowed in baseball. He has been able to get hitters to expand their zone. He leads the majors with a 39.7% chase rate, and it was again part of his success Wednesday, getting the Braves to chase on 38% of pitches out of the strike zone.<\/p>\n

Imanaga extended his streak of pitching at least five innings to 20 games, the third-longest active streak in the National League behind the Philadelphia Phillies\u2019 Cristopher S\u00e1nchez and Zack Wheeler.<\/p>\n

\u201cShota was awesome,\u201d manager Craig Counsell said. \u201cAgainst a team that\u2019s been that good offensively to shut them down into the eighth inning, he pitched wonderfully. He did a great job, and it\u2019s a shame we couldn\u2019t just do a little more on the other side of the ball to get him some runs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cubs\u2019 offensive futility on the trip continued with wasted chances. Although limited to four hits, they also recorded five walks but went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left seven on base. During the four-game skid, the Cubs have gone 1-for-27 with RISP while squandering 25 baserunners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree of these four days we\u2019ve had the starter out before the fifth inning because we\u2019ve piled up pitch counts, and we\u2019ve had really good at-bats, and we\u2019ve created action \u2014 we\u2019re missing some hits right now,\u201d Counsell said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got some guys having good at-bats, they\u2019re not ending up in hits. Some are ending up in walks, and some long at-bats that end up in outs that probably means we\u2019re missing some pitches that we probably need to hit during the course of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt adds up to some tough offensive games.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CubsCubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki walks back to the dugout after striking out in the eighth inning against the Braves at Truist Park on May 13, 2026, in Atlanta. The Cubs lost 4-1. (Kevin C. Cox\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Nico Hoerner\u2019s RBI single tied the game in the fifth, but a chance for a multirun inning came up short when Alex Bregman grounded out to third with runners on second and third to end the frame. They had another chance to take the lead in the top of eighth with a two-out rally. Bregman singled and stole second, and Ian Happ challenged a full-count strike-3 call that was overturned to a walk. Seiya Suzuki, up for the second time with two on, struck out to end the eighth.<\/p>\n

Maton had pitched well this month coming into Wednesday\u2019s appearance. He hadn\u2019t allowed a run in five appearances while allowing just one hit and one walk. Harris\u2019 infield single on a ball Hoerner tried to scoop and shovel with his mitt errantly got past first baseman Michael Busch, prompting Counsell to end Imanaga\u2019s night at 96 pitches and right-handed hitting Ha-Seong Kim due up.<\/p>\n

Maton didn\u2019t bury a curveball low enough, allowing Kim to single to left field. Maton recovered to strike out lefty pinch hitter Dominic Smith, but for the second straight night Mike Yastrzemski burned the Cubs. Yastrzemski turned on a sweeper over the plate for a go-ahead RBI double. The Cubs cut down Kim at the plate to keep it a one-run game, at least briefly.<\/p>\n

Maton has been wrestling with his curveball grip all season and continues to search for consistency. Mauricio Dub\u00f3n delivered the big blow on another Maton curveball that caught too much plate for a two-run homer. A scuffling Cubs offense must find a way to beat left-hander Chris Sale on Thursday to avoid getting swept in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a situation where we can escape with even just a one-run deficit and have more of a chance in the top of the ninth but got to execute that pitch there and give the boys a chance,\u201d Maton said. \u201cIt\u2019s still a matter of putting guys away when we have opportunities to do that and just not really doing that right now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 Shota Imanaga holds himself to high standards. Even when facing the best offense in baseball, Imanaga\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":698492,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[72,46,5,138,24,4245,576,161,36,37,4,33,4397,105,770],"class_list":["post-698491","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-cubs","tag-alex-bregman","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-baseball","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-chicagocubs","tag-craig-counsell","tag-cubs","tag-ian-happ","tag-michael-busch","tag-mlb","tag-nico-hoerner","tag-phil-maton","tag-seiya-suzuki","tag-shota-imanaga"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116571408110636066","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=698491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/698491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/698492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=698491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=698491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=698491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}