DENVER (Interstat) — Tomoyuki Sugano pitched into the seventh inning and the Colorado Rockies beat the Kansas City Royals 3-1 on Friday night at Coors Field.

Sugano allowed five hits and one earned run over 6 2/3 innings, striking out two and walking none. He retired 10 of the first 12 batters he faced and worked out of a two-on, no-out jam in the seventh before handing the ball to the bullpen. The right-hander earned his 11th win against four losses, snapping a personal two-game skid.

Michael Wacha took the loss despite a solid start for Kansas City. The right-hander allowed five hits and one earned run over six innings, striking out seven and walking none. Wacha exited with the score 3-0 and fell to 5-8 on the season. The Royals had won four of their previous five games before Friday.

Colorado struck first in the bottom of the first inning. Mickey Moniak doubled to right field with one out, and TJ Rumfield followed with a line-drive single to right that scored Moniak for a 1-0 lead. The Rockies added two more in the fourth, and that proved decisive.

Kyle Karros led off the fourth with a line-drive single to left. Tyler Freeman grounded out to second, moving Karros to second. Troy Johnston then reached on a throwing error by second baseman Michael Massey, allowing Karros to score from second and Johnston to advance to second. Brenton Doyle followed with a ground-ball double down the left-field line, deflected by third baseman Josh Rojas, scoring Johnston to make it 3-0.

That fourth-inning rally gave Sugano all the support he needed. The Royals mounted little threat against him until the sixth inning, when Carter Jensen hit a one-out solo home run to right field, his 15th of the season. Lane Thomas followed with a single, but Jac Caglianone lined out to center to end the inning.

The Royals threatened again in the seventh. Salvador Perez singled to lead off, and after a flyout and a groundout, John Rave singled to center to put runners at the corners. Josh Rojas flied out to left to end the inning and leave both runners stranded. Sugano was removed after that at-bat, having thrown 76 pitches.

Colorado’s bullpen finished the game. Antonio Senzatela recorded the final out of the seventh, striking out a batter in two-thirds of an inning. Brennan Bernardino worked a scoreless eighth, and Jordan Romano pitched a perfect ninth for his ninth save. Romano struck out one batter and did not allow a baserunner.

Kansas City’s bullpen also kept the Rockies in check after the fourth. Easton McGee pitched a scoreless seventh, allowing one hit and striking out one. Nate Pearson pitched a scoreless eighth, striking out one. The Royals’ relief corps combined for two shutout innings.

The Rockies outhit the Royals 5-6, but the game turned on the two unearned runs in the fourth. Wacha had allowed only an unearned run to that point, having worked around a double and a single in the first. He settled in after that, retiring 13 of the next 14 batters at one stretch, but the error behind him cost Kansas City a chance to keep the game close.

Kansas City’s best scoring opportunity came in the seventh, but Colorado’s bullpen escaped. The Royals left two runners on base in that inning and finished the game with six hits and one walk. Carter Jensen was the only Kansas City batter with an extra-base hit, his home run. Isaac Collins tripled in the second inning but was left stranded.

For Colorado, Doyle drove in the final run of the game and finished 1 for 3 with a double. Rumfield went 1 for 3 with an RBI, and Karros went 2 for 3 with a run scored. The Rockies had five hits total, all against Wacha, and none after the fourth inning.

The game lasted 2 hours and 8 minutes in front of a crowd of 39,317 at Coors Field. Kansas City dropped to 46-65, while Colorado improved to 43-67. The two teams will play again Saturday in the second game of the three-game series.

Kansas City had won three straight games heading into Friday, including a sweep of the two-game series at Minnesota earlier in the week. The Royals took the opener against the Twins 4-3 on Thursday before falling Friday, and they had also won four of their last six games against the Tigers before that. Colorado, meanwhile, had lost four of five before Friday, with their only previous win in that stretch coming Tuesday at San Diego.

The Royals’ recent road trip has been a difficult one. They lost two of three in Detroit before facing Minnesota, and they will now look to rebound against Colorado before returning home to face the Twins again next week. Kansas City’s next 10 games include two more against the Rockies, then four straight against Minnesota at home, followed by three against the Chicago Cubs.

Colorado’s schedule also continues with two more games against Kansas City, then a three-game series against Tampa Bay at home, followed by three games at St. Louis. The Rockies have struggled at home this season but have shown signs of improvement behind Sugano, who has been their most consistent starter.

Sugano’s previous outing had been a 4-0 loss to Tampa Bay on Aug. 5, in which he allowed three earned runs over five innings. He bounced back Friday by keeping the Royals off balance with a mix of fastballs and offspeed pitches. He did not allow a hit until the second inning, when Salvador Perez singled, and he worked around a triple in that same frame.

The most important sequence of the game came in the fourth inning. With the Rockies already leading 1-0, Karros singled and Freeman grounded out before Johnston’s error-aided at-bat changed the complexion of the game. The throwing error by Massey allowed the go-ahead run to score, and Doyle’s double added insurance. That two-run burst gave Colorado a three-run lead and forced the Royals to play catch-up the rest of the way.

Kansas City’s only run came on Jensen’s homer in the sixth, which cut the deficit to two. But Sugano retired the next two batters he faced, and the Royals never got the tying run to the plate in the final three innings. The Rockies’ bullpen retired 12 of the final 15 batters they faced, with the only baserunners coming on a single, a walk and a hit batter-free stretch that included a walk in the eighth.

The Royals had a chance in the eighth when Lane Thomas walked with two outs, but Caglianone grounded out to first to end the inning. They went down in order in the ninth against Romano, with Salvador Perez striking out, Michael Massey flying out and Isaac Collins flying out to right.

Colorado’s defense also contributed to the win. Center fielder Brenton Doyle made several difficult catches, including a sharp line drive from Lane Thomas in the fourth and another from Caglianone in the sixth. Shortstop Ezequiel Tovar and third baseman Kyle Karros combined on a double play in the second inning that erased a Salvador Perez single.

The total score of 4 went over the over/under line of 10.5. Interstat’s game simulator had projected a final score of Kansas City 6, Colorado 3, and its ELO system had given the Royals a 57.80 percent probability to win. Kansas City had been installed as a pregame favorite with a run line of minus 1.5.