RAFU WIRE AND STAFF REPORTS
DENVER – Japanese rookie sensation Seiya Suzuki walked twice and homered as the Chicago Cubs beat the Colorado Rockies 6-4 on Sunday to earn a split of a four-game series.
Suzuki stretched the Cubs’ lead to 6-3 with a solo shot off Ashton Goudeau to
right in the seventh before a crowd of 36,391 at Coors Field, making it four homers in the first nine games of his MLB career.
The 27-year-old Tokyo native is batting .400 and has hit safely in eight straight games in which he had an at-bat.
“It was good that we won. What matters most is the team winning. We’ve found an offensive flow and I’m just trying to ride that wave. I owe (my hitting success) to my teammates,” Suzuki said.
At Petco Park, Yu Darvish bounced back from a rocky last-start outing against the San Francisco Giants by striking out eight and limiting the damage to one run and four hits in 6-2/3 innings in the San Diego Padres’ 2-1 win over the Atlanta Braves.
Darvish (1-1), in his 11th MLB season, picked up his first win of 2022. In his second start of the season on Tuesday, the Japanese right-hander surrendered nine runs in just 1-2/3
innings, the shortest regular-season start of his career.
“My last bullpen session was great so I knew they couldn’t get hits off me if I threw like that, which is what I tried to do. My sliders were effective because I had complete control
of my two-seam fastballs against right-handed hitters,” Darvish said.
At Globe Life Field, Shohei Ohtani went 1-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored in the Los Angeles Angels’ 8-3 victory over the Texas Rangers. Ohtani led off the first with an infield single to third base to extend his hit streak to seven games.
In Milwaukee, Lars Nootbaar scored a run and went 0-for-1 as a pinch hitter, as the St. Louis Cardinals lost 6-5 to the Brewers.