Sánchez gem leads Phils to big victory over A’s
PHILADELPHIA — Cristopher Sánchez once again delivered another incredible performance to lead the Phillies to a lopsided 9-1 victory.
Until Jhoan Duran’s outing in the ninth, the Phillies pitching staff had not allowed a run in 19 innings.
2026 has been a mixed bag so far for Sánchez, who has struggled at times. He was at his best on Tuesday against the A’s, striking out 10 over eight innings. Through six innings, his only hit allowed came on what would have been a routine groundout to second base had Bryson Stott not been in motion to cover second on a stolen base attempt. The A’s lineup, which has struggled this year against lefties, were aggressive against Sánchez, who was equally as aggressive in the strike zone.
“He puts you in a bind,” interim manager Don Mattingly said. “Because he’s got the sinker on both sides of the plate and the changeup looks just like it. The slider comes in, so he puts you in a bind at the bottom of the zone. You try to push him up, but when he’s getting ahead in the count like that and throwing strikes, he’s forcing you to swing the bat. And then you gotta deal with three different pitches there, the sinker, the change and the breaking ball. They all seem to tunnel right to the same spot.”
Sánchez faced some traffic in the seventh. The first two batters, Colby Thomas and Zack Gelof, reached on ground ball base hits on low pitches. A ground ball out moved both runners into scoring position, but Sánchez stranded them by striking out Darell Hernaiz to end the inning.
Sánchez has a 2.42 ERA through his first eight starts.
“My mentality is to keep going,” Sánchez said through a team interpreter. “Keep going so that I can go out and toss eight more.”
“I’ve just seen him throwing the ball good all year long, it’s just like some of the results haven’t been as good,” Mattingly said. “Nothing seemed to be going our way. Now we’ve kind of got it going in that direction that we like.”
For a second straight night, Bryce Harper opened up the scoring on a third inning solo home run. It looked like the Phillies were going to win a second straight 1-0 game with Harper’s home run being the only run scored until the Phillies exploded for five runs in the seventh. J.T. Realmuto drove in two with a double and Stott hit his third home run of the year.
Stott is on fire. The Phillies second baseman has three home runs in his last five games. He spent most of the month of April with an OPS under .600. After the home run, his season OPS is now at .621.
Harper homered again in the eighth, though the center fielder Gelof was inches away from robbing him of his second home run of the night. The crowd of over 36,000 collectively gasped, then the first base umpire signaled a home run. Harper rounded the bases to a thunderous applause.
Fans that stuck around got to see the return of Duran. The closer was warming up when the Phillies were up by six. Mattingly said after the game that the plan was for Duran to pitch in this game, unless Sánchez entered the ninth without allowing any hits. There was a point where that looked like a possibility.
“It wasn’t a hard (decision) tonight,” Mattingly said. “It may have been hard on a different night.”
Duran faced the heart of the A’s lineup and allowed a bases loaded walk to Hernaiz. He threw 25 pitches in the laborious ninth, but was able to record the final out without the Phillies having to go to the warming Chase Shugart in the bullpen.
The Phillies will look to win a third consecutive series on Wednesday in game two of the three-game series against the A’s. Zack Wheeler will make his first home start since Aug. 2, 2025. He will be opposed by left-hander Jeffrey Springs.