The Rockies are closing out another rough season with the kind of late-September tension that comes with a club staring at a fourth straight 100-loss finish. After dropping two of three to the Mariners at Coors Field, Colorado sits at 57-99 and still has one final home series against the Arizona Diamondbacks before heading to Chicago to finish the year against the White Sox.
That backdrop made Sunday’s handling of Tomoyuki Sugano stand out even more. The veteran right-hander was sharp against Seattle, working five innings and allowing just one hit and one run while walking two and striking out five. He needed only 72 pitches to get through that stretch, but manager Warren Schaeffer turned to Ryan Feltner instead, a move that caught Sugano off guard.
“To be honest with you, I wanted to go longer,” Sugano said through interpreter Yuto Sakurai, per Thomas Harding of MLB.com. “I wasn’t aware that I was going up to five innings today, so it was a surprise to me. At minimum, I thought I could have gone seven, or gone to the mound for the seventh.”
Sugano’s reaction made clear he believed there was more left in the tank. The Rockies, though, appeared to have a different plan in mind, with Feltner following him in what seemed to be a piggyback arrangement. Feltner covered three innings, giving up two hits and one run, and Jimmy Herget handled the ninth without allowing a score.
The pitching usage fits the broader reality in Denver right now: this is a team using the final week of the season to sort through ideas and look ahead. President of baseball operations Paul DePodesta and his staff will have plenty to sort out once Sunday afternoon’s finale in Chicago is in the books, especially with Sugano, Jose Quintana and Kyle Freeland all set to hit free agency.
Feltner’s role is part of that conversation, too. He has struggled this season, but Colorado is trying him in the bullpen, and early returns there have been encouraging. He threw five scoreless innings against the Padres last Tuesday, allowing three hits.
For the Rockies, this is what the last stretch of a lost season can look like: experimentation, mixed messages and a starter who clearly wanted the ball longer than he got it. Sugano did his part on Sunday. The frustration came after.
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