LOS ANGELES -- As the midday rush hit the streets of Japan on Thursday, a direct line back to the nation's baseball history was being drawn under the Wednesday night lights of Dodger Stadium.
For the first time on a Major League mound, Colorado’s Tomoyuki Sugano and Los Angeles' Shohei Ohtani faced off as opposing starting pitchers -- 14 years after entering professional baseball as part of the same 2012 Nippon Professional Baseball draft class.
But while the pregame anticipation celebrated the international milestone, the actual game play quickly centered on the execution of a powerhouse Los Angeles lineup, which propelled the Dodgers to a 4-1 victory.
Sugano faced an immediate challenge from the top of the Dodgers' order. In the bottom of the first, Ohtani, who entered the night with a .800 career average against Sugano, took a 93.7 mph four-seam fastball down the middle of the plate and hit a solo home run to center field to open the scoring. Two batters later, Freddie Freeman followed with a solo homer of his own, lifting an 80.1 mph curveball into the left-center-field seats.
“It was definitely a special feeling,” Sugano said through interpreter Yuto Sakurai regarding his first career start at Dodger Stadium. “I wanted to do my best. To be honest, I could have prevented both homers. Maybe the second one I gave up was hit pretty well. But afterwards, I tried to make adjustments in my command a little bit more.”
For Sugano, those first-inning home runs were a shift from his usual pattern. While the right-hander has kept damage isolated by surrendering only solo home runs all season, the quick succession of the long balls forced an early adjustment. After the first frame, he settled into a rhythm, keeping the Rockies within reach while the Colorado offense scratched across its lone run in the fourth inning.
The final sequence of Sugano's night arrived in the bottom of the fifth during his third encounter with Ohtani. With a runner on first, Sugano worked the count full before his sixth pitch missed inside for a ball. Trusting his eyes, Sugano instinctively tapped his cap toward the dugout, signaling that he wanted to trigger an automated ball-strike (ABS) challenge to review the call.
Instead, he was met with a frustrating reality. The Rockies had already exhausted their challenges earlier in the game -- a rare scenario for a Colorado staff that typically manages its reviews with extreme caution.
“We had two close ones that we missed, and that's gonna happen,” catcher Hunter Goodman said regarding the early usage of the ABS challenges. “At that point, you just play baseball.”
Though Sugano recovered to induce an inning-ending groundout from Ohtani just a few pitches later, a subsequent throwing error extended the frame and ended his night at 4 2/3 innings, allowing six hits and three earned runs.
Reflecting on the outing, Goodman noted how a shift in their pitch sequence allowed the veteran right-hander to settle in after the difficult opening frame.
“I thought in the first, we kind of stayed kind of all the way out and then started attacking them more in and open some things up for him,” Goodman said. “And I thought he did a good job after the first.”
Manager Warren Schaffer echoed that sentiment regarding his starter's resilience, noting that the early damage was more a credit to the hitters than a reflection of poor execution.
“Two solo homers in the first inning,” Schaffer said. “It was a fastball away to arguably the best hitter in the world that he hit out of the ballpark. And then Freeman, who's a pretty dang good hitter, too, you just got to tip your hat to that. After that, I thought Toma settled in nicely. He was a pro, just like he always is. Gave us a chance to win.”
The night wrapped up a highly competitive, but demanding series for a young Colorado roster continuing to test itself against the National League's elite. While the Rockies' bats struggled to find hard contact for most of the evening -- with Tyler Freeman finally breaking through with a single in the eighth -- the clubhouse viewed the environment as a critical barometer for where they want to go.
“It’s a tough series. It’s a good team over there, but that’s a spot we want to be in,” Goodman said. “This is a series we want to compete. We want to be better. We want to get to the point where we come into these and win these. A lot of guys' first time playing here -- it’s a tough stadium to play in and it's really loud. Hopefully these guys got some good experience and we can come back later in the year and do a little bit better.”