When the Phillies were going through a rough patch, there were a lot of players who were underperforming, so Cristopher Sanchez’s problems weren’t necessarily noticeable. But Sanchez was definitely struggling, having allowed more than six runs in two of his last three games.
He had no problems on Saturday night. Against an admittedly disappointing Nationals lineup, Sanchez was incredibly efficient, making all 27 outs on just 99 pitches. The result was a 5-1 victory for the Phillies, their fourth in a row.
The crowd was in a festive mood, thanks to the presence of well-known alumni and a beautiful pregame ceremony for former team president Dave Montgomery. Sanchez put on a show for them, knocking out groundball after groundball. The only blemish on the night came in the fourth inning, when Alex Call opened the inning with a home run. But Sanchez didn’t let that bother him, and he struck out the next 12 batters in succession.
The offense wasn’t that successful from the start. For the second year in a row, they had an unimpressive starting pitcher in MacKenzie Gore, but they weren’t able to score many runs early on. To be fair, several batters hit the ball hard, only to see it land in a fielder’s glove.
They got a little lucky in the fourth inning when Alec Bohm took advantage of a missed strike and walked with two outs, then tied the game one batter later with a double by Nick Castellanos.
In the sixth inning, the offense finally broke through. Trea Turner hit a double to first, and two batters later, Bohm brought it home to give the Phillies the lead.
Castellanos and JT Realmuto followed with singles to give the Phillies another run, and then Edmundo Sosa and Johan Rojas had consecutive singles to extend the lead to 5-1.
That was more than enough support for Sanchez. He allowed just one hit in the final three innings and quickly made up for it with a groundball double play. He worked around a ninth-inning error to complete the game, his second of the season.
The Phillies will go for the sweep with Taijuan Walker on Sunday. I really hope everyone enjoyed seeing Sanchez pitch so efficiently tonight, because it’s very unlikely Walker can repeat that feat.
