Shota Imanaga surrenders three homers to Reds as Cubs fall 7-4

CINCINNATI — At this stage of the season, wholesale changes wouldn’t be prudent.

So finding a way to compete day to day takes precedence. In the Cubs’ 7-4 loss to the Reds on Friday, it was clear that left-hander Shota Imanaga wasn’t quite the best version of himself.

He gave up three home runs — all solo shots — and allowed four runs (three earned) in five innings.

“Right now, it feels like every day [my delivery] is a little different,” Imanaga said. “Obviously, when you’re doing well, there’s consistency with it. But for me right now, it’s finding what’s working that day, then making an adjustment there. And, hopefully, I can make that adjustment early because if I don’t, the opposition scores runs early.”

Imanaga’s season was interrupted by a strained left hamstring, which he said was the first lower-body muscle strain he had ever experienced. And though he has had some dominant outings since returning in late June, he hasn’t regained the consistency of his rookie year.

“What Shota understands is, he is feeling good right now; he’s probably not moving the way that he was earlier in the year or even last year because of the injury,” pitching coach Tommy Hottovy told the Sun-Times before the game. “He’s healthy; he knows how he can compete.

‘‘But he also knows that probably the offseason and this winter will be an important time for him to be able to continue to rebuild the lower body to where he wants it, so that he can translate that into stuff and his mechanics next year.”

Building strength and flexibility is more difficult while playing. But that doesn’t mean the work stops.

“You can nudge,” Hottovy said of adjustments this time of year. “He understands where we want to go with his delivery and what makes his delivery the best. Some days he feels like he can do it, and other days he feels like it’s just still not quite where he wants it to be.”

Friday was a mixed bag of results.

All three home runs came on fastballs. The pitch Miguel Andujar hit out in the first inning was on the inside corner and barely clipped the top of the strike zone, a great location. To Matt McLain, however, Imanaga missed belt high with an inside fastball for a third-inning homer. And in the fourth, Spencer Steer homered on a top-rail fastball, albeit over the middle of the plate.

“That’s what’s still encouraging: There’s not hard contact,” manager Craig Counsell said. “And his split finger was really good tonight. His slider was really good tonight.”

The Cubs’ offense showed off its power early in the game, too. Dansby Swanson and Matt Shaw homered, and Ian Happ added an RBI double.

Right-hander Porter Hodge took over in the sixth inning with the score tied at 4. But he allowed back-to-back home runs to Steer and Elly De La Cruz for a three-run swing.

Injury updates

The Cubs originally hoped to have outfielder Owen Caissie (concussion) join the team in Cincinnati, Counsell said, but that’s no longer the plan.

“He can’t really start physical activity at this point,” Counsell said. “So the regular season may be in jeopardy here.”

Caissie landed on the seven-day concussion list after banging his head on the Wrigley Field bricks last Saturday while making a catch at the wall.

Right fielder Kyle Tucker had a “good day’’ working with an outside physical-therapy group in Tampa, but that didn’t include any running, Counsell said.

“We’re hoping, obviously, to get him to a point that when he gets back to Wrigley, we’re running and we’re looking at mapping out a play date,” he said.