NEW YORK – A few hours before watching his team play the Yankees on Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium, Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer was lauding right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano, the team’s No. 1 starter.
Schaeffer wasn’t just talking about Sugano leading the team with 12 victories. The skipper said Sugano has the ability to limit damage and keep a clear head.
“Because of his veteran presence on the mound, nothing shakes Sugano,” Schaeffer said. “He knows what he is doing – his game planning, all of this stuff combined. In the big spots, he doesn’t waver. There is confidence and a belief in himself. He just knows how to limit damage in big spots.”
It looked like Sugano was going to have one of his shortest outings of the season Wednesday, but he bounced back and pitched six innings in a 6-1 loss.
Sugano was dealing to start the game, striking out the side in the first frame. Then trouble arose an inning later. Luis García Jr. led off the frame and hit a 2-0 sinker into the right-center-field seats.
In the third, Sugano retired the first two hitters he faced, but getting that third out was tough. He allowed a single to Aaron Judge and a double to García before walking Spencer Jones to load the bases. Up stepped George Lombard Jr. to the plate. On a 1-0 slider, Lombard hit the ball over the right-field wall for his first career grand slam.
At 21 years and 99 days, Lombard became the second-youngest player in franchise history to hit a grand slam, trailing only Mickey Mantle, who did it twice – 20 years, 280 days on July 26, 1952 against the Tigers and 20 years, 283 days on July 29 of that same year against the White Sox.
“[The slider] didn’t go the way I wanted it to go, according to the pregame meeting,” Sugano said through interpreter Yuto Sakurai.
Said Lombard, “It’s pretty cool. It’s definitely a little different from the first [career] home run. A grand slam is cool. It was a big swing to put us in front and give us a good lead so we could win today.”
After the grannie, Sugano had a nice bounceback, retiring the next 10 batters he faced before leaving the game in favor of Juan Mejia. Sugano even had a game-high 15 swings and misses.
“I was actually feeling good about my stuff today,” Sugano said. “But in the third inning, there was the walk [to Jones] that got me in trouble. So I have to look back and make sure I don’t do the same thing again.”
Sugano’s counterpart, right-hander Will Warren, limited Colorado to five hits in six innings. His only blemish was a solo homer to Connor Norby in the fifth.
“Warren kept the ball down well. He was really good,” Schaeffer said. “He threw strikes early down and expanded even further down, and we chased [those pitches]. He put his fastball where he wanted to. We didn’t have an answer for him.”