00:00DRS a great sign for Chicago with that two and a half game lead atop the National League Central to see their starter back on the mound today.
00:08Shota Iminaga set to make his first start since the beginning of May, returning off the IL in Chicago, placed as the road favorite under the arch, minus 136.
00:19The over understands at nine.
00:21What can we anticipate out of Shota Iminaga's first start in nearly two months?
00:25That's always the tough part about it, right?
00:27How long is it going to go? Is it a short leash? Is it five innings? Is it 65 pitches? 75 pitches?
00:32Those are always the tough things, and also just the adrenaline that you get being back in Major League Baseball.
00:36Having said that, if you're just looking to fade these pitchers in this environment, I can't deny that.
00:41It's 92 degrees at first pitch in the middle afternoon today in St. Louis with seven to eight mile an hour winds blowing out to dead center field.
00:48It's perfect hitting conditions, but we don't have a perfect requirement here on these pitchers.
00:53I just told you, Iminaga is a name, right? And he has a background where he can be a very dominant pitcher.
00:58You might get five innings pitch, one earned run out of him today, but I don't know.
01:01So it's hard to sort of fall back and say, that's exactly the way I want to go.
01:05And he's going to give up runs just because he's coming back and isn't used to pitching in Major League Baseball, if you will.
01:10If you take a look at Palante on the mound today, this is the interesting one, which sometimes makes it tough to fight through as well.
01:15His last 30 days, 26 and a third innings pitched. His ERA is over five. Ah, fade material right away.
01:21But his XFIP number is a 2.96, so getting just a little bit unlucky.
01:26And also understand this, when you deal with the heat and the humidity, what do you want to be as a pitcher, Ben?
01:31You want to be a ground ball pitcher. You take a look at, you know, Palante, 69% in the last month have been ground balls.
01:38That usually limits the damage on extra base hits. It can hold you down because we like that Chicago Cubs lineup.
01:42Against right-handed pitching over the past month, Happ, Tucker, Suzuki, Armstrong, and Bush, all incredibly high numbers with a chance to do damage.
01:50But today, for me, it's almost like a pass game. It's like, boy, it's a shame to waste that type of weather.
01:54But I don't want to fade Imanaga, and I don't want to back Imanaga.
01:57And Palante's a pretty good pitcher, which means you might lean yourself to an under and then go, hey, this game ended up 7-4 because everybody's hitting home runs
02:04because of how great that hitting environment is. It's a stay-away game for me.
02:07I wish it was different where you had two pitchers you can really club on to, but not in this one today for me, Ben.
