The Pressure Shows Up Early
San Diego — The quiet ended the way most quiet things do in baseball: suddenly, and with a single that mattered.
Jackson Merrill poked a two-out RBI single to left field in the seventh inning Wednesday, driving in Ty France, who had doubled down the left field line. The run ended Cristopher Sánchez's scoreless streak at 50 ⅔ innings — the first run the left-hander had allowed since the first inning against the San Francisco Giants on April 30.
The numbers are doing most of the announcement work here, which is usually how teams prefer it.
"My vocabulary is probably not good enough for him, but he's just been amazing to watch," Phillies manager Don Mattingly said after the 3-2 win.
Sánchez gave up four hits and one walk in seven innings, striking out eight. It was his sixth start of at least seven innings this season, tied for the most in MLB.
The Detail That Tilts It
Including the Dead Ball Era (prior to 1920), Sánchez's streak ranks fifth all-time. Walter Johnson went 55 ⅔ innings for the Washington Senators in 1913, and Jack Coombs logged 53 scoreless innings with the 1910 Philadelphia Athletics. Only those two, plus Orel Hershiser and Don Drysdale, have longer streaks in MLB history.
In May, Sánchez became the only non-opener in baseball history to make five starts in a calendar month without allowing a run. He threw at least seven innings in each of those five starts and was named the NL's Pitcher of the Month.
He was the NL Cy Young runner-up behind Paul Skenes last season, when he threw 202 innings with a 2.50 ERA and led all pitchers with 8.0 WAR, per Baseball Reference's calculations. Through 13 starts this season, Sánchez carries a 1.46 ERA and leads MLB with 86 ⅓ innings pitched.
The Phillies acquired Sánchez from the Tampa Bay Rays on Nov. 20, 2019, in exchange for infielder Curtis Mead. He made his MLB debut in June 2021. In March, Philadelphia signed him to a six-year, $107 million extension — a deal that already looks like one of the smartest bargains in the sport.