Rockies continue fade into season’s end, drop 16th in last 18 games

Rockies Report, Game 160:

ROCKIES BOTTOM LINE: In a battle of two former Nippon Professional Baseball stars, Munetaka Murakami got the better of Rockies starter Tomoyuki Sugano, taking him deep twice as the Chicago White Sox extended the Rockies’ road losing streak to 11 games in a 6-1 thrashing at Rate Field on Friday night.

The sum total of the Rox offense was accumulated by first baseman TJ Rumfield, who brought Colorado back within 2-1 in the second inning with his 16th home run of the season. Rumfield had two hits — as many as the rest of the Colorado lineup as a collective.

Went down and got it 😤 pic.twitter.com/wQMnDgZtbQ

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) September 26, 2026

White Sox right-hander Sean Burke confounded the Rox for 5 1/3 innings, holding them to four hits and a walk while striking out seven.

“Forward and backward, up and down, he had us all over the place tonight,” manager Warren Schaeffer told media after the game.

It got worse for the Rox when they got into the White Sox bullpen; Chicago’s relievers delivered 3 2/3 innings of no-hit ball to conclude the evening.

As has often been the case recently, the Rockies dug themselves an early hole, falling behind 2-0 in the first inning on Miguel Vargas sacrifice fly and Murakami’s first homer of the night. His second came in the seventh inning.

The White Sox poured it on in the eighth inning at the expense of reliever Juan Mejia. The first three Chicago batters in the frame reached with singles, the last of which kicked off the mound to bring home a run. Murakami later had his third RBI of the evening on a one-out line-drive single to right field; that provided the final margin.

Former Rockies outfielder Brenton Doyle entered the game as a pinch runner in the seventh, playing the final two innings in center field. He did not come to bat in the game.

Colorado fell to 57-103. If the Rox at least drop one of their final two games, this year’s edition of the club will stand alone with the second-most defeats in team history, trailing only last year’s 43-119 finish.

ROCKIES STARTER’S REPORT

Sugano rebounded from his rough first inning to retire 11-consecutive White Sox batters at one point starting with allowing a sacrifice fly to Kyle Teel in the third inning. That put him on track for a quality start, and with 80 pitches through six innings and no baserunners allowed since the third, Schaeffer sent Sugano back out for the seventh inning.

“Most of the night, he was getting ahead, and when Tomo’s getting ahead, good things usually happen,” Schaeffer said.

Two pitches later, Sugano’s sinker stuck in the heart of the strike zone, and Murakami crushed it into the left-center field stands.

Sugano finished the night with 6 2/3 innings to his name and six hits allowed without a walk. But the homers were costly; this was the third time in his last four starts that he allowed a pair of home runs.

He also ends the season with seven losses and a no-decision in his final eight starts of the campaign, falling to 12-12.

BITS AND PIECES

IT WAS DECIDED FOR THE ROCKIES WHEN: Chicago opened the bottom of the eighth inning with four singles in the first five at-bats, resulting in two more runs to put the game out of reach.

NUMBER TO NOTE: 15 — First-inning runs allowed by the Rockies in their last four games. “The challenge of being down early is that you can’t play offense the way you want to play, at times,” Schaeffer said. “But today, we had some sloppy play in the first inning that led to those runs. … We have to play better overall baseball on both sides of the ball.”

WHAT’S NEXT: Former White Sox pitcher Jose Quintana will get a chance in his old stomping grounds as he makes his second start since returning from a nearly four-month stint on the injured list. The White Sox counter with right-hander Davis Martin. First pitch is scheduled for 5:10 p.m. MDT.

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