Colorado Rockies starter Tomoyuki Sugano didn't pitch badly, but the Colorado bats were silent as Rays pick up sweep.
For the Tampa Bay Rays, they went out to a hardware store and picked up some brooms to bring with them to Coors Field on Wednesday.
Turns out they used those brooms as the Rays shut down the Colorado Rockies to get out of the Mile High City with a sweep of this three-game series.
This is tough news for the Rockies, who just cannot get any momentum behind them when making up some ground on the fourth-place San Francisco Giants in the National League West Division.
Colorado starting pitcher Tomoyuki Sugano went five innings, gave up five hits, three earned runs, walked two, and struck out three. Sugano also surrendered a home run while he was on the mound. In 85 pitches during his outing, Sugano threw 49 pitches.
Parker Mushinski worked a clean sixth inning where he faced just three batters. Juan Mejia also worked an inning, but he gave up an earned run and one walk. Zach Agnos came on for Rockies manager Warren Schaeffer and put together two solid innings in the eighth and ninth.
Lack of hits hurt Rockies
The Rockies managed just six total hits against the Rays, with Kyle Karros leading the charge with a 2-for-4 day at the plate.
To make things even worse, Wednesday's defeat gave Colorado its 70th loss this season. The Rockies are now 45-70, and have gone 3-7 in their past 10 games.
Final score: Rays 4, Rockies 0.
Colorado gets a day off on Thursday before opening a road trip with three games against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. After the series in the Gateway City, the Rockies will then go to play the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Giants at Oracle Park.
For a sneak peek at the probable starting pitchers for the series, let's start with the first game on Friday night. Right-hander Ryan Feltner of the Rockies goes up against Cardinals right-hander Kyle Leahy.
Then, Kyle Freeland, who is coming off his first career complete-game win in his career, takes on St. Louis and left-hander Matthew Liberatore on Saturday night. This series wraps up with a Sunday afternoon contest between Colorado's Michael Lorenzen and St. Louis' Michael McGreevy.
All games in the Rockies-Cardinals series will be carried on Rockies.TV and can be heard on KOA Rado in the Denver metropolitan area.
The road has not been friendly to the Rockies at all this season. They are 18-38 overall when playing in opponents' stadiums. Maybe that will change in this trip on the road for Colorado.
