MESA, Ariz. — If there’s one thing that’s been impressive about Shota Imanaga so far, it’s his ability to adjust in-game to what hitters are trying to do against him.

He’s done that behind the scenes, too.

“He’s curious,” manager Craig Counsell said. “It’s stuff that he can handle and not paralyze him. Sometimes, what you have to be careful with information is that it can paralyze you, right? And so, you always have to be careful with when you use it, when we use it for players and when we give it to players, how it kind of gets digested.

“I think Shota’s got the ability to kind of like hear it, ‘Oh, that doesn’t work,’ kind of throw it out and then keep the stuff that works for him. And that’s just how his mind works and how his head works and it’s what allows him to adjust pretty quickly.”

He showed that in a minor-league game on the backfields at Sloan Park on Wednesday.

In the 1^st inning against Giants’ minor leaguers, 2023 first-round pick Bryce Eldridge crushed a slider from Imanaga over the right field fence.

“The takeaway from today’s outing was in the 1^st inning, [I] threw a slider that got hit for a home run,” Imanaga said through interpreter Edwin Stanberry. “So, making that adjustment so the quality of the slider was a lot better towards the end of the game.”

Imanaga finished with 13 strikeouts in the game in 5.1 innings, allowing the lone run and a pair of walks. He threw 88 pitches and picked off a runner at first base that he had allowed to reach on a free pass.

He’s always had a solid understanding of who he is as a pitcher, but the video and data available to him here has helped him reach a deeper level of what he can do.

“So obviously in Japan, I had fabulous coaches and had fabulous advice from them,” Imanaga said. “But over here through [pitching] coach Tommy [Hottovy] and other coaches, I can watch videos of myself and then getting a deeper understanding of the pitcher I am, learning that has really helped.”

Wicks’ outing

Jordan Wicks also pitched on the backfields at Sloan on Wednesday, going 5.1 innings with 8 strikeouts and 2 walks on 86 pitches.

Wicks, like Imanaga, pitched in a minor-league game to control his workload and have a more controlled setting to try and work on different things. For him on Wednesday, it was his slider. In one at-bat, he threw “like five sliders in a row to one guy ‘cause I was like, we just need the reps with it.”

That allowed him to have a better feel on the pitch and see improvement in it on the outing.

“After we did that we came up the next inning and then the slider was a lot better,” Wicks said. “Having those extra reps and those extra feels through the pitches helps a lot to improve in that game setting.”

Injury updates

Jameson Taillon (back) threw a 10-pitch, “touch-and-feel” bullpen session Wednesday at the 12-pack at Sloan Park. He played long toss on Tuesday and the Cubs will assess the next steps after they see how he recovers. Taillon will need to build back up, so there’s a chance he could land on the IL to start the season.

Patrick Wisdom (back) had imaging done on Wednesday and the Cubs are awaiting results on that before moving forward. If he can’t enter game action before Cactus League wraps up, he may open on the IL, too.

Nick Madrigal (hamstring) was taking grounders at Field 1 on Wednesday. Counsell said he might play in a minor league game at the end of the week or early next week.

Next Up

The Cubs travel to Scottsdale, Ariz. to take on the Rockies at 3 p.m. Drew Smyly will get the start for Chicago.