Before rookie Shota Imanaga pitched the Cubs past the Red Sox, he was one of their top offseason targets

“I know everybody was talking about Yamamoto,” Sox manager Alex Cora said Friday afternoon. A few hours later, the Sox got a striking glimpse of the pitcher they'd courted in a 7-1 loss to the Cubs at Fenway Park in the series opener. Imanaga (4-0, 0.98 ERA) dazzled in 6⅓ innings, allowing just five hits while striking out seven and walking one, to allow Chicago to cruise to a road victory witnessed by 31,801 fans — many of them Cubs partisans. When the Red Sox started taking better hacks against those two offerings, Imanaga confounded with an array of breaking balls.