Chase DeLauter tripled twice, singled, walked and drove in two runs, and the Cleveland Guardians beat the Colorado Rockies 7-2 in Denver on Sunday.
Cleveland swept the three-game series to stretch its winning streak to four games and keep pace with the Texas Rangers in the AL wild card race.
Jo Adell, Steven Kwan, Austin Hedges and Angel Martinez finished with two hits apiece for the Guardians. Foster Griffin (15-4) allowed two runs on five hits in five innings to improve to 3-1 since being acquired from the Washington Nationals at the Aug. 3 trade deadline.
Brett Sullivan had an RBI double for Colorado, which went 0-6 on its homestand and has been swept in three consecutive home series. The Rockies have lost nine in a row at home and are on pace to lose 100 games overall for a fourth straight season.
Cleveland took advantage of Rockies starter Tomoyuki Sugano’s 44-pitch first inning. Kwan led off with a single, DeLauter tripled and scored on Adell’s hit to left-center. Martinez drove in another with a two-out single but was thrown out trying to advance to second on the play.
The Guardians struck again in the second inning when Brayan Rocchio stole second after hitting into a fielder’s choice, went to third on Kwan’s single, and scored on DeLauter’s single. A double by Adell made it 5-0.
Sugano (12-7) pitched one more inning before leaving. He allowed five runs on nine hits in his shortest major league start. He has dropped his last two decisions and is 1-3 with a 7.58 ERA in August.
After a quiet first inning, Colorado got to Griffin in the second. With one out, Connor Norby walked, Jordan Beck singled and Sullivan doubled to bring home the first run. Beck scored on Ryan Ritter’s groundout. Ezequiel Tovar and Jake McCarthy walked to load the bases before Griffin got Cole Carrigg to pop up after an 11-pitch battle. Griffin threw 47 pitches in the inning.
Cleveland got the run back in the fifth when DeLauter tripled and scored on Nathaniel Lowe’s single. It added its final run on Rocchio’s sacrifice fly in the eighth inning.
