Nationals 6, Cubs 3: Home runs by Alex Bregman and Ian Happ are not enough

Before you start complaining about Shōta Imanaga serving up another home run at an inopportune time (with two runners on base), consider that you’re not going to win many games when you get only four hits and three of them are solo homers. That was the tale of the Cubs’ 6-3 loss to the Nationals Sunday afternoon at Wrigley Field. Imanaga started out well, striking out the first two Nats he faced.

Then two of them singled ahead of Joey Wiemer smacking a three-run homer. Wiemer, you might recall from his time with the Brewers, but he’s been in four other organizations (Reds, Royals, Marlins, Giants) before the Nats claimed him on waivers in January. Imanaga threw pretty well after that, too, allowing just three more hits and a couple of walks.

He got charged with a run after he left the game. All in all, it wasn’t a terrible outing for Shōta, apart from the homer. Meanwhile, Jake Irvin, who led all of MLB in home runs allowed last year (38; Imanaga was third with 31), stymied the Cubs for three innings.

The only baserunner up to the third was Alex Bregman reaching on an error in the first, but he did not get past first base. The Cubs did hit some balls hard in those early innings, including this hot line drive by Nico Hoerner, caught by Irvin [VIDEO] . Your browser does not support the video tag.