Sept. 17 – Shota Imonaga pitched six perfect innings, Dansby Swanson homered and drove in four runs, and the Chicago Cubs beat the Oakland Athletics 9–2 on Monday.
Iemonaga (14-3) allowed two runs on five hits, drove in three and struck out 11 to lead the Cubs (77-73) to their victory. Iemonaga has won his last five games.
Isaac Paredes and Miguel Amaya each had two RBIs for Chicago. He went 3-4 and Seiya Suzuki went 3-5 and had 18 hits for the Cubs.
Brent Rooker went 2-for-5 with a homer and two RBIs for Oakland (65-86), which lost its third consecutive game. Jacob Wilson and Tyler Soderstrom also had two hits each for the Athletics.
Chicago opened the scoring in the first inning with two singles by Suzuki and Cody Bellinger, followed by Paredes’s RBI single off Oakland starter Joey Estes to make the score 1–0.
Nico Horner and Pete Crow-Armstrong started the second inning with singles. Amaya then walked Horner with a single to right base.
Ian Happ had an RBI single and then Swanson hit a three-run shot, his 15th homer of the year, to increase the Cubs’ lead to 6-0. Estes (7-8) was taken out after Suzuki’s sixth consecutive Chicago hit. He allowed six runs on nine hits in one inning, gave up four walks and struck out one.
Oakland got two runs in the top of the third inning when Lock hit his 38th home run of the season and scored Wilson.
In the second inning, a single by Amaya gave Chicago their seventh run. Two batters later, Swanson had an RBI single, increasing the Cubs’ lead to 8–2.
In the second half of the fourth quarter, the Cubs continued their onslaught, with Bellinger’s three-pointer and Paredes’ run-scoring single giving the Cubs a 9–2 lead.
Trey Wingert and Jake Neely combined to pitch three scoreless innings for Chicago.
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