Bryce Harper’s three-run homer, Cristopher Sánchez shutout lead Phillies in 6-0 win over Pirates
Listen to article 0:00 min
PITTSBURGH — Before Cristopher Sánchez’s start against the Pirates on Saturday, Pittsburgh’s Marcell Ozuna told the Phillies lefty that he was going to hit a homer.
“That wasn’t a very good idea,” said catcher J.T. Realmuto.
Because en route to his second career shutout in the 6-0 Phillies win, Sánchez posted a career-high 13 strikeouts. And Ozuna? He accounted for four of those.
Sánchez extended his scoreless streak to 29 ⅔ innings, dating back to April 30. His dominance over Pittsburgh made bench coach Dusty Wathan’s life a little easier as he filled in for interim manager Don Mattingly, who was away from the team attending a son’s graduation from Purdue.
» READ MORE: ‘Substitute teacher’ Dusty Wathan takes over Phillies dugout for a day
“Managing is really easy when you have really good players and they play well,” Wathan said.
Bryce Harper and Kyle Schwarber also helped in that regard. In Friday night’s game against Pittsburgh, Harper had missed a grand slam by mere inches. On Saturday, he left no room for doubt with a three-run shot. In his first at-bat against Pirates right-hander Bubba Chandler, Harper hit his longest homer since 2022, 457 feet off the batter’s eye in center field.
Schwarber delivered an RBI double in the second inning that gave Sánchez a sizable cushion to work with. Not that the lefty needed much.
“Third or fourth inning, he was low pitch count, not giving up any hits, just throwing the ball really well, I felt like it could be a special outing,” Realmuto said.
Sánchez retired 11 consecutive Pirates to start the game until Bryan Reynolds doubled for the Pirates’ first hit in the fourth inning. He did not walk a single batter and worked around six total hits to keep the scoreless streak alive.
He leaned on all three of his pitches to set a career high in strikeouts: seven came on his changeup, four on his sinker, and two on his slider.
“All three of his pitches are really good pitches,” Realmuto said. “His changeup’s obviously elite, so you can use that every at-bat, and then fastball, he uses it both sides of the plate, and I think that makes it really difficult. … You can’t ever go up there and sit on one pitch, because he mixes so well.”
The Phillies’ defense helped, too: Trea Turner turned a key double play in the fifth, Justin Crawford made a diving catch in center field in the eighth, and Harper made a big pick at first on the final batter of the game to seal it.
Wathan was the Phillies’ third base coach when they acquired Sánchez in a minor league swap with the Rays in 2019 for infielder Curtis Mead. At the time, he was 22 and a completely different pitcher. He had no command and had yet to develop his changeup into one of the best pitches in baseball.
“I saw him throw bullpens, and there was a lot of balls off the chain-link fence,” Wathan said. “For a guy to make the transformation that he’s made is something special. You don’t see it very often. To me, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime transformation to go from where he was, to being one of the best pitchers in baseball.”
After the eighth inning, with his pitch count up to 91, Wathan checked on how Sánchez was feeling. He told Wathan that he felt good.
“OK,” Wathan said. “You got it. Go get ’em.”
Sánchez allowed two one-out singles in the ninth, and Tanner Banks started to get ready in the bullpen. But after striking out Ozuna for the fourth time, he induced a ground ball from Nick Yorke for the final out. He finished with 108 pitches.
Wathan had tabbed Yorke as Sánchez’s last batter.
“I’m proud of myself, but at the same time, I just try to keep my feet on the ground,” Sácnhez said through team interpreter Diego D’Aniello. “And keep it going, keep getting better, keep working.”
A large contingent of Phillies fans had descended on PNC Park for Saturday’s game, and they made their voices heard after Sánchez finished off the shutout. Before heading to the clubhouse with his teammates, he spent some time signing autographs for them.
“I felt goose bumps every time that I thought about it,” Sánchez said. “It felt like a home start, because every inning, walking in, and walking back from the dugout, was really exciting. They stood up, they were cheering, they were screaming at me. So it was really exciting for me.”
Both Sánchez and Wathan left the ballpark Saturday with souvenirs. Sánchez saved a ball that he will give to his family, while the team gifted Wathan a signed bottle of bourbon in honor of his first major league win as acting manager.
The Phillies have evened their record to 23-23. It marks their first time at .500 this season since April 13.
“My mentality, and our mentality here, is to keep competing,” Sánchez said. “Just keep going, keep giving the best of ourselves. It’s not about two or three starts. It’s about consistency. So we just have to keep going.”
