Pitching, Home Runs Help Sacramento Split with Sugar Land
SUGAR LAND, Tex. – A strong pitching effort and five runs over the middle innings, three of which came from home runs, were the catalyst for the Sacramento River Cats to earn a 5-1 victory over the Sugar Land Space Cowboys on Sunday and split their six-game series. From the
SUGAR LAND, Tex. – A strong pitching effort and five runs over the middle innings, three of which came from home runs, were the catalyst for the Sacramento River Cats to earn a 5-1 victory over the Sugar Land Space Cowboys on Sunday and split their six-game series.
From the first inning Landen Roupp was ready to go, retiring each of the first six Space Cowboys (15-11/64-37) he faced while working around a leadoff walk in the third. There was action on the basepaths in his final innings, stranding a leadoff hit and two-out walk for his fourth and final scoreless frame.
In the top of the fourth the River Cats (11-16/54-47) got the scoring started, using one swing of the bat from Christian Koss to break the tie ballgame when he launched his second of the year on a 3-2 pitch. It was the fifth inning where the majority of the damage was done, scoring four times in the following frame.
After a flyout to start the inning, Grant McCray singled and Marco Luciano brought him home instantly by crushing his eighth of the year out to right center. For Luciano he now has 13 RBI in the month of July, his most since he had 16 in the month of April.
As the inning kept moving, Hunter Bishop and Brett Auerbach both worked walks in front of Blake Sabol, he cashed in on the RBI opportunity by lining a double to left center and scoring both Bishop and Auerbach. Sabol now has hits in nine of his past 10 games and is batting .323 (10-for-31) in that time.
Following Roupp was right-hander Kai Wei-Teng (1-3), who picked up his first win of 2024 by tossing his first shutout appearance. From the fifth through the seventh, Teng worked 3.0 innings and punched out four with only one hit allowed.
At the end of the game Luciano was 2-for-4, scoring once and driving in a pair thanks to his homer. Five other River Cats found hits including Koss and Grant McCray, the latter of which has hits in six straight games and is batting .280 (7-for-25).
Having concluded its fifth series split of the season, Sacramento will now return home to begin a six-game series with Reno beginning on Tuesday, as first pitch from Sutter Health Park is tossed at 6:45 p.m.