The weather forecast for Sunday in Chicago was pretty grim—rain for most of the day, I’ll say more about that later—but the rain ended in the afternoon, just in time for the game to start, which was delayed by 2 hours and 20 minutes.

The wait was worth it, as Shōta Imanaga once again made an outstanding start. The Cubs hit three home runs and defeated the Nationals 5-0 with eight hits.

After Imanaga put the Nats away 1-2-3 in the first inning, the Cubs wasted no time getting on the scoreboard. Mike Tauchman sent a 2-0 fastball off the video board in right field (VIDEO).

Dansby Swanson followed the home run with a walk, stole second base and scored on this single by Seiya Suzuki (VIDEO).

Imanaga allowed a two-out single in the second inning and then struck out seven of the next eight Nats before the Cubs hit another long ball in the fourth inning, this time by Michael Busch, his 21st (VIDEO).

Isaac Paredes managed a walk but was taken out of the game on a double play. Then Pete Crow-Armstrong also managed a walk and Miguel Amaya increased the Cubs’ lead to 5-0 with his eighth home run of the year (VIDEO).

Amaya also doubled up in this game, which was nice to see since he has been in a bit of a slump lately.

After that, Shōta was all about him. He allowed a number of hits in the fifth inning, another in the sixth and another in the seventh, but he pitched his way out of all that trouble, finishing seven innings without a hit, with 94 pitches (67 strikes). He allowed no walks and struck out four times. Here’s a look back at Imanaga’s performance (VIDEO).

Also on Imanaga’s launch from JohnW53 of BCB:

For Shota Imanaga, this was the fourth start of the year in which he pitched at least seven innings and allowed no runs. Justin Steele did this twice, Ben Brown, Kyle Hendricks and Jameson Taillon once each. All went exactly seven innings.

This was the 21st start by a Cub this year with at least five innings and no runs allowed. Imanaga has seven of those, Taillon four, Javier Assad and Steele three, Hayden Wesneski two and Brown and Hendricks one each.

With one out in the eighth inning, after two Nats hit a single against Ethan Roberts, Joey Gallo appeared to hit a ground-rule double into the right-field seats {VIDEO).

As you can see in the clip, Craig Counsell walked out to discuss it – odd, because that can be reviewed, so why not just ask for a review? That eventually happened, and the ball was ruled a foul (VIDEO).

Roberts finally struck out Gallo and ended the inning without further incident.

Trey Wingenter was called upon to pitch the ninth inning — I guess Counsell wanted to save all his relievers for the Phillies series. He threw a 1-2-3 inning, but only after Keibert Ruiz had batted eight pitches before suffering a groundout.

Here is the final result (VIDEO).

So the Cubs won three of four games against the Nats over the weekend to finish 4-3 at home. They are 42-36 at Wrigley this year with three games remaining. More on Cubs vs. Nats from BCB’s JohnW53:

Today’s game was the Cubs’ 647th against the Expos/Nationals. It was the 37th time the Cubs have shut them out, but the first since August 25, 2010, when they won 4-0 in Washington. This was their 89th game since then.

The Cubs hadn’t held them to a clean sheet at home since a 5-0 one-hitter by Sean Marshall and three relievers on May 17, 2006. This was the 57th game at Wrigley since then.

……….

With today’s win, the Cubs finished the season 6-1 against the Nationals. That’s their best winning percentage in the rivalry, which dates back to 1969, when the Nationals began as the Montreal Expos. The Cubs were also 6-1 in 2007. This is the eighth time the Cubs have gone 6-1 against a team outside their division. They were 7-0 against the Mets in 2015 and 6-0 against the Braves in 2008 and the Phillies in 2022.

A few more notes: Ian Happ was in the original lineup today, both the one the Cubs tweeted out and the one they announced at the stadium about 15 minutes before first pitch. Then he was cut and replaced by Patrick Wisdom in left field, while Tauchman took over the first batter spot. Here’s what happened:

I imagine the weather had something to do with it. Hopefully he’s OK.

And… the weather. Sure, the game ended after it stopped raining, and the two hour and 20 minute delay was pretty long, but not the longest, even this year. That wasn’t too bad.

That forecast was known on Friday – that it would rain basically all morning and much of the afternoon. Why not push the start time back? It could have been announced for, say, 4:05 p.m. on Friday. That would have meant players, fans and game day staff could all have arrived later. It’s been done before. I wish MLB – who were responsible for this today – would be more considerate of players, game day staff and fans. It seems to me they just don’t care.

OK, get off the soapbox and get back to the Cubs’ final road series of 2024, against the Phillies in Philadelphia. The Phillies play the Mets tonight, and if they win, they’ll clinch the NL East title. But the Phillies still have something at stake, as they could still finish with the best record in the NL. As of this writing, the Cubs have not listed a starter for Monday’s series opener, but it could be Justin Steele. The Phillies will start Aaron Nola for Monday’s game. Gametime is at 5:40 p.m. CT, and the telecast will be on Marquee Sports Network.