The Coors Field crowd saw something historic in the first inning of Saturday night’s game. Spencer Horwitz led off the game with a 434-foot home run off Tomoyuki Sugano. Jake McCarthy led off the bottom of the first by doing the same thing, except his never left the yard – and inside-the-park home run, one of the rarest events in baseball, on a ball that found the gap and a defense that couldn’t corral it in time. It was just the second time since 1921 that both teams had hit leadoff home runs in the same game, with one of them being of the inside-the-park variety, joining a 2024 game between the Dodgers and Diamondbacks. The Rockies went on to win 2-1, clinching their seventh series win of the season in front of 40,380 fans – the largest crowd at Coors Field this year.
McCarthy’s home run was the first of his career to lead off a game and only the 20th inside-the-park homer in franchise history. He extended his hitting streak to nine games in the process, tying the longest of his career, and is now slashing .325 over his last 20 games.
When asked about his overall approach on the bases, he kept it simple. “Just trying to hit the ball to the outfield, and then take an extra base when I can,” he said.
On the inside-the-park homer specifically, he was candid.
“It was almost a really good play,” he said. “I’ve had triples with errors before, but never a true inside-the-park home run before, so that was cool.”
He didn’t decide he was going all the way until third base coach Andy Gonzalez waved him home.
“I was running out of gas from third to home,” he said. “But I’m just trying to keep my head up. There’s always an opportunity to go home.”
He added a double in the third that set up an RBI single from TJ Rumfield, plating what would prove to be the winning run.
Sugano settled in after the rocky start and was, in his manager’s words, vintage.
He worked six innings, allowed just the one run, and retired the final twelve batters he faced in order. He leaned more heavily on his slider than usual after making a slight grip adjustment, and it paid off – five strikeouts and his eighth win of the season, the most by a Rockies starter through 15 starts since 2017. Warren Schaeffer didn’t hold back when praising the performance.
“Tomo was putting the ball where he wanted – back-door cutters, splitter, slider were all good,” he said. “I just thought he competed like crazy. Professional outing again from him.”
Sugano was characteristically understated about the assignment of facing Paul Skenes, last year’s NL Cy Young winner.
“I knew we couldn’t really score that much,” he said. “He’s a good pitcher, so I just wanted to minimize damage as much as possible.”
It worked – Skenes struck out eight over six innings but allowed the two runs that decided the game, his third straight quality start in what has nonetheless become a stretch of seven consecutive losses for Pittsburgh when he’s started dating back to mid-May.
The ninth inning supplied its own piece of theater. With the bases loaded and two outs, Jake Mangum put the ball in play to Kyle Karros at third, whose glove was clipped by the baserunner’s cleat as the ball arrived, sending it rattling around his glove, and making a throw impossible. Karros knew the rule. Contact on a fielder attempting to make a play means automatic interference, regardless of intention.
“I think he would have been out if there was no runner there,” Karros said. “I just go straight toward the ball – if they touch me, he’s out.”
He wasn’t sure the umpires had seen the contact from their angles, and the play wasn’t reviewable, so there was a tense moment of uncertainty before the umpire eventually confirmed the interference.
“I got a little bit of relief there,” Karros said. “Once they finally called him out, it was a big weight off.”
Schaeffer, who couldn’t see the contact from the dugout, credited his third baseman’s reaction.
“I’m glad Kyle was demonstrative with it,” he said. “It worked out.”
Jaden Hill closed it out for his second save of the season, working through traffic on the bases in a leveraged spot just a day after a rougher outing.
“Jaden did a great job of bouncing back today,” Schaeffer said.
Jimmy Herget worked a clean inning as well, his second outing since returning from the IL.
“That’s the Jimmy I know from last year into the beginning of this year,” Schaeffer said. “It’s good to see him back.”
The Rockies have now won four of their last seven series since May 29, a stretch that has them at 10-10 over that span – modest progress, but progress all the same for a team that didn’t reach 30 wins last season until August. They sit at 30-47. The crowd noise on a Saturday night in late June, the kind of atmosphere that finds its way into a young player’s memory, was not lost on anyone in the building.
“The place was rocking,” McCarthy said. “We want to give these fans something to root for. I think we could hang with anybody.”
Leave a Reply