Sugar Land blanks El Paso 11-0 behind Lance McCullers Jr. return
McCullers Jr. threw three scoreless innings in his first rehab start, and Sugar Land backed him with an 11-0 rout that kept El Paso winless in the second half.
Lance McCullers Jr. made his first Triple-A rehab start look like a clean step forward, and Sugar Land turned it into a blowout, blanking El Paso 11-0 at Constellation Field. The right-hander worked three scoreless innings as the Space Cowboys delivered a late offensive burst that turned a tidy lead into a statement win.
Sugar Land struck first in the opening inning when Cavan Biggio and Trenton Brooks drew walks and Zach Dezenzo lined an RBI single into left to put the Space Cowboys ahead 1-0. From there, McCullers settled the game into a controlled pace, giving Sugar Land exactly what it needed from a rehab outing: strikes, zero damage and enough stability for the lineup to keep expanding the margin.
That mattered because this was not just any tune-up. The Astros sent McCullers on a rehab assignment June 25 after listing him with right rotator cuff impingement, and MLB.com said the club was still targeting a July return. He had been on the injured list since May 19, when right shoulder inflammation scratched him from a scheduled start against Minnesota, and he had already reached the live batting practice stage on June 19 before getting back into game action.
The start fit the bigger comeback picture. McCullers had not only survived the first test, he did it with enough efficiency to let Sugar Land control the night from start to finish. The Space Cowboys improved to 3-0 in the second half, while El Paso fell to 0-3 in that same stretch. For the Chihuahuas, the loss was especially harsh: it was their first shutout of the season and their third straight defeat.
By the time the final out arrived, the game had long since moved past the early 1-0 score. Sugar Land kept stacking runs and pulled away into a runaway finish, turning what started as a rehab watch into an 11-0 answer to the previous night’s 8-1 loss. The game drew 2,010 fans and was over in 2:46, a brisk Thursday night that gave the Space Cowboys a split of momentum inside a six-game set and gave McCullers a scoreless first step back toward Houston.
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