Nothing Shota Imanaga does this season should come as a surprise.

But it doesn’t mean you still can’t be impressed when he performs like he did Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.

Imanaga dazzled — like he has done most of this season — tying a career-high with 10 strikeouts in the Cubs’ 7-3 win over the Twins.

“He was outstanding,” manager Craig Counsell said. “The strikeouts big indication for sure. I mean, there were very few balls kind of hit hard today, even. I thought he pitched wonderfully, and 7 strong innings. Getting deep in the game like that helps us out at the tail end of this long stretch here.”

The lefty retired the first 10 Minnesota hitters he faced, keeping the Twins off guard with his four-seam/splitter mix. Facing a Twins team that hasn’t seen him allowed him to thrive, especially with his deadly splitter.

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Imanaga used the off-speed pitch 35 times and induced 12 swings-and-misses. Through most of the season, the pitch was his bread and butter. But he had been working to fine-tune the pitch and succeeded Tuesday night.

“I felt like people were making adjustments against it,” Imanaga said through interpreter Edwin Stanberry. “I wasn’t getting as many swing and misses. But with the second half, I’ve been working on it, figured something out. Now I’m able to throw it for swing and misses and getting strikeouts with it.

“Sometimes when I was getting hit, it was left in the zone. So it’s not that I remembered how to use the splitter to get the swing misses, it’s just I kind of figured it out again. And then I’ve been getting the results.”

His lone blemish came on a 2-run home run from Royce Lewis on a four-seamer that caught the inner part of the plate.

No worries, for the 30-year-old, who settled into a groove after the home run, retiring 11 of the next 12 batters he faced.

It was the type of outing Cubs fans have almost gotten used to from Imanaga — pitch deep into a game, strikeout a lot of hitters and don’t issue too many free passes. It was his 13th quality start of the season in his 21st start. His 10 strikeouts matched the amount he threw on July 21 against the Diamondbacks and his 1 walk was the 17th time this season he has issued 1 or fewer free pass.

The Cubs hitters staked him to a fast lead, too. Isaac Paredes crushed his first home run of the season — a 3-run shot to left field in the 1st inning. Paredes added an RBI single 2 innings later, capping his best offensive outing since being acquired in a move with the Rays ahead of the July 30 trade deadline.

“You hope it’s kind of a fresh start and then you kind of get going again,” Counsell said before the game. “He’s working on some things to try to get himself ironed out and just keep working at it.”

He needed just one at-bat to show that. With the wind howling in at 19 mph at first pitch, Paredes hit a 101.1 mph home run to left field — a no-doubter most days, but a basket shot on Tuesday — that marked his first long ball with team he originally signed for as a teenager.