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Cristopher Sanchez - Phillies - Philadelphia Baseball Review
For 115 years, the name attached to this Phillies pitching record belonged to baseball royalty.

Grover Cleveland Alexander.

Hall of Famer. Dead-ball titan. The greatest pitcher in franchise history.

On Wednesday afternoon at Petco Park, Cristopher Sánchez took it from him.

And he did it looking nothing like a pitcher merely chasing history.

He looked like the best pitcher on the planet.

Sánchez delivered seven more scoreless innings in the Phillies’ 3-0 win over the Padres, stretching his staggering shutout streak to 44 2/3 innings and completing a three-game sweep in San Diego. Somewhere between another disappearing changeup and another helpless Padres swing, Sánchez officially climbed past Alexander’s 41-inning streak from 1911 for the longest consecutive scoreless innings streak by a Phillies pitcher since the mound moved to its current distance in 1893.

Think about the names that never touched it.

Steve Carlton.
Robin Roberts.
Roy Halladay.
Cole Hamels.
Zack Wheeler.

None of them got there.

Sánchez did.

And by the end of Wednesday afternoon, he owned another Alexander record, too.

Five consecutive starts of at least seven scoreless innings. Another franchise mark that had survived untouched for more than a century.

The remarkable part is how normal Sánchez is beginning to make this look.

The Padres hit baseballs hard Wednesday. They just could not hit them where fielders weren’t standing.

Fernando Tatis Jr. reached second with nobody out in the first inning. Sánchez stranded him there. Jackson Merrill doubled in the second and never moved again. Manny Machado twice sent balls screaming toward the warning track, and twice Sánchez watched them die in gloves instead of seats.

One landed in Edmundo Sosa’s glove near the wall in left. Another nearly carried into the gap in right-center before rookie Justin Crawford tracked it down against the wall with the kind of closing speed that changes games.

Nothing fell apart.

Nothing ever seems to anymore when Sánchez is on the mound.

He scattered six hits across seven innings, struck out nine and walked nobody. Of his 100 pitches, 84 came via the sinker and changeup combination that has become one of the most devastating two-pitch mixes in baseball. Padres hitters swung 50 times against him and missed on 18 of them.

And when Sánchez walked off the mound after the seventh inning, he left owning numbers that barely seem real.

A 1.47 ERA.

A 1.82 FIP.

A major-league-leading 79 1/3 innings.

A major-league-leading 3.3 WAR.

A scoreless streak that now stretches nearly 45 innings.

This is no longer a hot streak.

This is dominance.



The Phillies eventually gave Sánchez enough offense to breathe in the sixth inning after doing almost nothing against Padres starter Walker Buehler. Crawford ignited the rally with a single before Sosa was hit by a pitch. Then Kyle Schwarber lined a two-out RBI single to right to finally crack the scoreless tie.

Moments later, Trea Turner beat out a potential inning-ending double play ball just enough to bring home another run.

Turner added a solo homer in the ninth — his second home run in as many games — to provide the final margin.

It was plenty.

Because Sánchez never gave San Diego an opening.

The Phillies finished off the shutout with innings from Jonathan Bowlan and José Alvarado, preserving a sweep that pushed them to 29-27 and continued the remarkable turnaround under interim manager Don Mattingly.

They are now 20-8 since Mattingly took over.

But this afternoon belonged to Sánchez.

For generations, Alexander’s name sat untouched atop one of the oldest pitching records in franchise history. It survived the Whiz Kids. It survived the 1980 champions. It survived the golden rotation years.

Now it belongs to a left-hander from the Dominican Republic whose season has transformed from promising to historic in less than two months.

And the scariest part for the rest of baseball might be this:

He still looks completely in control.

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