Mark Grote

That's more than anybody in baseball.

If you can't get it going against a guy like that and put up, I don't know, five, six runs, what are we really doing here?

You're right.

That's a great point, but I want to take it back to Shota Imanaga.

You said he settled down after the Joey Weamer three-run homer on a 2-1 count.

I disagree with you, Layla.

You know that we talked about this before the show.

I thought it was a very, very hittable pitch.

I thought it was wheelhouse stuff.

even if it was a little bit low.

Shota Imanaga finished 2025 by allowing a home run in each of his final nine regular season starts, adding up to 15 home runs.

In the postseason, he allowed three home runs in six and two-thirds across the two games that they allowed him to pitch in.

So in a season in which most people are picking the Cubs to –

very least win the division.

This is something that needs to be heavily monitored and something that is allowed to be concerned about even after just one start in the month of March.

That's my thing.

Every single year that I have covered this team, I get a lot of questions that I either had before the season began reaffirmed as questions or we find some answers.

And that starts on opening day.

And

Yeah, there's a lot of selective memory that goes on with listeners and talk about, well, it's early or, you know, oh, you guys are so negative.