CHICAGO—Shota Imanaga struck out a career-high 11 in winning his fifth straight start, Dansby Swanson homered while tying his season high with four RBIs and Chicago Cubs defeated the Oakland Athletics 9-2 on Monday night.
Chicago (77-73) remained five games behind the New York Mets (82-68) for the final NL wild card with 12 games remaining.
Imanaga (14-3) allowed five hits over six innings, including Brent Rooker’s 38th homer, a two run-drive in the third. The 31-year-old left-hander walked three.
Rooker went deep for the second straight game and added a single as Oakland lost its third straight. The previous two were at the White Sox, who had not won back-to-back games in nearly three months.
Isaac Paredes and Miguel Amaya each had three hits and drove in two runs in an 18-hit attack. Paredes is 14 for his last 29 (.483) with seven RBIs in his last eight games,
Seiya Suzuki had three hits, among seven Cubs starters with multi-hit game.
Trey Wingenter followed Imanaga with two scoreless innings and Jack Neely worked around a pair of singles in the ninth.
Joey Estes (7-8) gave up six runs and nine hits.
