Chicago Cubs star Shota Imanaga is quickly becoming a Cy Young favorite

Shotamania is in full swing for the Chicago Cubs. Through his first eight starts in the majors, Shota Imanaga is sitting at an eye-popping, league-leading 0.96 ERA with a 2.30 FIP that ranks fourth in all of baseball, all while rivaling the great Fernando Valenzuela's historic rookie year. We're almost running out of superlatives to describe the unexpectedly dominant start to his career in the U.S. Nationwide, experts have been similarly dazzled by what the lefty has done in his young career.

As early as mid-April, Imanaga was already earning attention as a potential Rookie of the Year candidate alongside new Cubs first baseman Michael Busch. While Busch has struggled and fallen off somewhat since, "The Throwing Philosopher" has only continued to thrive, recently scoring Rookie of the Month honors. Now, in MLB's latest poll, he's getting recognition not just as a first-year player, but as one of the best pitchers in the sport gunning for the Cy Young Award.

The poll of experts had Imanaga coming in third for the coveted pitching award, albeit with the second-most first-place votes. Zach Wheeler leads the pack at 19 votes currently after pitching to a 2.53 ERA and 2.75 FIP through 53 1/3 innings, while former Cubs target Tyler Glasnow places barely ahead with eight first-place votes, posting a 2.53 ERA and 2.51 FIP across 57 innings thus far.

Since this is only his first year adjusting to the major league workload, Imanaga isn't providing quite the bulk of Glasnow, Wheeler, or other similar arms. What he has provided is still nothing short of historic. Since the mound was lowered after the 1968 season, Imanaga is only one of two pitchers to throw their first eight starts with an ERA below 1.00, with the other being Valenzuela. He's been doing everything right along the way too, placing just outside the top ten pitchers in terms of walks per nine (1.54) and within the top twenty in strikeouts per nine (9.84) while severely limiting barrel rate to the fifth-best percentage in baseball (4.8%).

Shota Imanaga just had one of his most important starts with the Cubs

Monday's performance against the Braves especially showed how dominant a run Imanaga is on. Despite clearly not having his best stuff against one of the best lineups in baseball, he made it through five innings with seven hits, three walks, and no runs while punching out eight batters. The Cubs desperately needed another ace-level arm that could be trusted to shut things down even on the hardest days, and a start like that shows an ability to keep calm and make pitches no matter the situation.

This is only mid-May and regression is likely coming, but the underlying numbers and expected stats have still shown that Imanaga is a different caliber of pitcher than Cubs fans could've hoped for. A Cy Young is starting to seem realistic, albeit challenging given aces like Wheeler, Glasnow, and Dylan Cease in the National League. For now, at least, Imanaga feels almost untouchable and it feels great to have an electric player like that on the mound in the Friendly Confines.