Shota Imanaga threw 7 1/3 quality innings and Justin Turner delivered the go-ahead RBI single on Friday to propel the Chicago Cubs to a 3-1 victory over the visiting San Diego Padres.
Imanaga (2-0) allowed one run on four hits while striking out four and walking none, lowering his ERA to 0.98, as the Cubs won their home opener and their fourth consecutive game overall. Chicago’s offense mustered just three hits, but Ian Happ recorded two of them.
Randy Vasquez (0-1) pitched 4 2/3 innings of two-hit ball and gave up three runs (two earned) for the Padres. The San Diego starter struck out a pair, but walked five.
Fernando Tatis Jr. was 2-for-4 in the loss, while Martin Maldonado’s solo homer accounted for the Padres’ lone run as the club fell for the first time this season after winning its first seven.
After Happ’s leadoff single, Michael Busch, Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner each worked two-out walks, with Hoerner driving in the Cubs’ first run in the bottom of the first inning.
San Diego got the run back in the top of third, when Maldonado hit his first home run of the year, a 365-foot shot to left field.
The Padres threatened in the fifth, when Jake Cronenworth led off with a double before advancing to third on Brandon Lockridge’s sacrifice bunt. Cronenworth was then thrown out at home trying to score on Maldonado’s grounder to Dansby Swanson at shortstop. Imanaga escaped without damage by getting Tatis to ground into an inning-ending forceout.
After Vasquez got two quick outs in the bottom of the fifth, Happ slapped an opposite-field single, before back-to-back walks by Kyle Tucker and Seiya Suzuki knocked the San Diego starter from the game.
Reliever Yuki Matsui was then greeted by pinch-hitter Turner, whose infield single made it 2-1 Cubs. Chicago pushed its lead to 3-1 following Machado’s fielding error, before Hoerner’s flyout ended the inning.
Imanaga was replaced by reliever Porter Hodge after retiring Lockridge to begin the top of eighth.
Cubs closer Ryan Pressly ran into trouble in the top of the ninth after issuing a one-out walk to Xander Bogaerts and a subsequent single to Jackson Merrill. After retiring pinch-hitter Gavin Sheets, Pressly earned his third save of the season with a game-ending strikeout of Cronenworth.
