WASHINGTON -- Less than one month into his MLB career, Tomoyuki Sugano has already developed a reputation inside the Orioles¡¯ clubhouse of what to expect each time the 35-year-old Japanese right-hander steps onto the mound.
¡°He¡¯s awesome,¡± infielder Jackson Holliday said. ¡°Every time he goes out there, we know we¡¯re going to get a quality start, he¡¯s going to throw a bunch of strikes and get late into the game.¡±
Baltimore has struggled. The club¡¯s starting rotation has been banged up and underperformed. But Sugano -- a rookie by MLB standards but one of the most decorated pitchers in Nippon Professional Baseball history -- has been more than carrying his weight.
Sugano turned in another strong seven-inning outing during the Orioles¡¯ 4-3 loss to the Nationals at Nationals Park on Wednesday night. Although a late O¡¯s comeback attempt was unsuccessful, Sugano kept the team in it and made sure it was a winnable game.
Through 23 games, Sugano is the only Baltimore starter to go deeper than six innings -- and he¡¯s done it twice, as he also tossed seven impressive frames in his previous start against Cleveland last Thursday.
¡°I always have this mentality of going deep every time I pitch,¡± Sugano said via interpreter Yuto Sakurai.
Wednesday could have easily turned into a shorter night for Sugano, who gave up a pair of first-inning homers. James Wood led off the bottom of the first with a home run, then Josh Bell hit a two-run blast later in the frame.
However, Washington never scored again vs. Sugano, who retired nine consecutive batters following Bell¡¯s homer. Sugano settled in and set down 18 of the final 21 hitters he faced, a stretch including a 1-2-3 seventh.
Sugano used all six of his pitches fairly evenly during the 94-pitch outing, relying most on the splitter (29 times) but incorporating each of the sweeper (17), cutter (16), sinker (11), four-seam fastball (11) and curveball (10) at a decent rate. He induced only four whiffs among 42 swings, but the Nationals recorded only seven hard-hit balls (exit velocity of 95-plus mph, per Statcast) against him.
¡°We were trying to get the ball up,¡± Washington manager Dave Martinez said. ¡°Sugano, he settled down pretty good. His split was good, his offspeed was good, his cutter was better toward the latter part of the game.¡±
¡°He hung that one to Bell in the first, but I thought he mixed really well after that,¡± O¡¯s manager Brandon Hyde noted. ¡°Didn't show any sign that he was getting tired. Just knows how to pitch. Really did a great job mixing speeds and keeping them off-balance for seven innings.¡±
After issuing five walks in 14 innings over his first three starts, Sugano hasn¡¯t had any in either of his past two outings. His pinpoint command is a big reason why he was a two-time Sawamura Award winner, a three-time Central League MVP and an eight-time All-Star during his 12-year run with the Yomiuri Giants.
The only other Orioles pitcher to record back-to-back starts of seven-plus innings featuring no walks since the start of 2020 is Corbin Burnes, who did so June 22 and 27 last season.
¡°I made sure I just kept going [after the first]. I pounded the zone,¡± Sugano said. ¡°That was what I was thinking.¡±
As Sugano kept putting up zeroes, Baltimore clawed back into the game. Adley Rutschman knocked an RBI single in the third, Tyler O¡¯Neill had a sacrifice fly in the seventh and Ram¨®n Ur¨ªas tied the game at 3 with a sac fly in the eighth.
But the Nats quickly took a 4-3 lead in the bottom of the eighth on Luis Garc¨ªa Jr.¡¯s sac fly, then Kyle Finnegan stranded a pair of O¡¯s baserunners in the ninth by getting Heston Kjerstad to pop out to end the contest.
A night after recording only one hit, the Orioles registered 10. However, they went 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position and left 12 men on base.
It was still encouraging for Baltimore to look less flat than it did in its previous two games -- a 24-2 loss to Cincinnati on Sunday and a 7-0 defeat at Washington on Tuesday -- as it tries to build some positive momentum. If the rest of the rotation can emulate Sugano and the O¡¯s (9-14) can better cash in on scoring opportunities, they could emerge from this early rut.
¡°I¡¯m really happy with how we played,¡± Hyde said. ¡°We play baseball like that, we¡¯re going to win a lot of games.¡±