Cristopher Sánchez has not given up a run since April 30, and the number has gotten big enough that his next time on the mound turns into appointment viewing.
The Phillies lefty carries a 44⅔-inning scoreless streak into his next start, projected for Tuesday against the same Padres he just shut down, this time at Citizens Bank Park. He passed Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander on May 27 to break a Phillies record that had stood for 115 years, since Alexander threw 41 straight scoreless as a rookie in 1911.
Where the streak sits
Sánchez is seventh on the live-ball-era list at 44⅔ innings, having already moved past Zac Gallen’s 44⅓ from 2022. Two more scoreless innings in his next start would push him past Zack Greinke’s 45⅔ from 2015, the longest such run in more than a decade. Orel Hershiser sits at the top with 59, a number nobody has approached since 1988.
What he did in May has almost no company. Hershiser and Sánchez are the only pitchers ever to make five starts in a calendar month and not allow a run, and Sánchez went at least seven innings in all five of his. He last gave up a run on a Casey Schmitt bloop single back when the Phillies were 10-19 and Don Mattingly was finishing his first series as interim manager.
How he is doing it
The changeup is the engine. Sánchez built one of the most untouchable single pitches in baseball, and he paired it in May with a sinker that kept Padres hitters off balance for a full series. San Diego went 0-for-20 with runners in scoring position against Philadelphia, struck out 32 times and stranded 19 across the three games.
His season line tracks with the run. Sánchez owns an MLB-best 1.47 ERA and leads the majors in innings, a year after he finished second to Paul Skenes in NL Cy Young voting and led all pitchers in bWAR. The 600th strikeout of his career came in the same start that broke the franchise record.
What is at stake Tuesday
Sánchez kept it simple after breaking the record. “It’s something special. Something really important,” he said. “I never imagined something like this, so I’m really happy and proud of myself.”
The Padres get the rematch, and former Phillie Nick Castellanos and a lineup that just struck out 32 times against him will try to put a run on the board in a park they know. If they cannot, Sánchez climbs into a tier of names like Greinke and Bob Gibson before the calendar even clears the first week of June.
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