Rockies Bury Reds Early, Rumfield and Sugano Do the Rest

Rhett Lowder (3-6, 5.75 ERA) got the ball for Cincinnati looking to build off a solid ERA-checking stretch, while Tomoyuki Sugano (8-4, 4.69 ERA) took the mound for Colorado making just his second start back from a back-spasm stint on the injured list. First pitch was 1:10 PM MT.

Sugano's return matters more than the record suggests. He'd been scratched from a start against San Francisco earlier this month with back spasms after already dealing with a fingernail issue, and his previous outing back on June 26 was a mess — 7 earned runs in 5 innings against Minnesota. Cincinnati, meanwhile, is still piecing its rotation together with Nick Lodolo and Brandon Williamson both hurt, which is part of why Lowder — who spent time in the bullpen after a brutal midseason stretch of walking 18 batters in 18.1 innings — is back in the rotation at all.

Neither team enters with much separating them in the standings — Cincinnati sits at 44-52, Colorado at 39-60 — but the Rockies had the juice on this particular Saturday, and the market leaned their way pregame too, with total money sliding from -120 to -103 on the Over.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
CIN	0	0	1	0	1	0	1	0	0	3	9	0
COL	2	4	2	0	0	2	0	0	—	10	14	0

Lowder never found his footing. Colorado jumped him for 6 runs before the second inning was over, and by the time he was pulled after just 2.1 innings he'd been tagged for 11 hits and 8 earned runs. TJ Rumfield put together a four-hit day and delivered a two-run homer in the 6th, and Colorado's offense didn't need much more than that to bury Cincinnati early and coast.

Sugano, for his part, looked like a pitcher who needed exactly this kind of workload after the injury scare. He worked 6.1 innings, allowed just 6 hits and 3 earned runs, and didn't walk a batter — a clean turnaround from his last outing. Javier Trevino gave the Reds something to hang their hat on with two homers of his own, including a 424-foot shot in the 5th, but solo damage wasn't going to dig Cincinnati out of a 6-run first-inning hole.

The lopsided final continues a rough week-plus stretch for both clubs — Cincinnati has dropped 3 of its last 5, Colorado 4 of its last 5 — but Saturday was all about which team's pitcher showed up. Sugano did. Lowder didn't. That's usually enough.

Cincinnati Reds at Colorado Rockies

Sources