Cristopher Sánchez battles through a scrape, pitches seven scoreless innings in Phillies’ shutout win vs. Pirates

Cristopher Sánchez unleashed a first-pitch strike in the second inning and called for a trainer.

Uh-oh.

Three words the Phillies never want to see in the same sentence: “Cristopher Sánchez” and “trainer.” But there they were Tuesday night, and well, Citizens Bank Park held its collective breath.

Sánchez, it turned out, cut loose a changeup and scraped the top of his left thumb, the evidence of which was a blood stain between the red pinstripes on his white pants. He smiled, even chuckled with a few teammates, and a few dabs later, the ace lefty was firing again.

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Crisis averted. Sánchez kept throwing his signature changeup without incident, allowing three hits in seven scoreless innings. And the Phillies cakewalked, 8-0, over the Pirates to move within 2½ games of the first-place Braves, who lost at home to the Cardinals.

Oh, and postgame fireworks went off as planned for the 41,710 paying customers.

Scrape? What scrape?

“Yeah, just a little scratch on the finger,” Sánchez said through a team interpreter. “It happens sometimes when I throw the changeup because of the touch with the finger. So, it’s no big deal.”

But that momentary pit-of-their-stomach feeling as assistant athletic trainer Christian Bermudez went out to see Sánchez underscores the precariousness of this entire thing.

Look, there isn’t any replacing Sánchez, whose next home start may come for the National League in the All-Star Game in two weeks. He sits atop the rotation with a 2.00 ERA, second in the majors behind only the Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski (1.45).

But the Phillies lack the organizational pitching depth to cover for any of their starters if they miss even a turn or two. They already have back-of-the-rotation worries, with Aaron Nola’s 6.04 ERA and Andrew Painter’s return to triple A. The fifth-starter spot is occupied by Alan Rangel, who has twice been used behind an opener.

One injury, and it all comes down like a Jenga tower.

Surely, then, an anxious feeling came over interim manager Don Mattingly when Sánchez waved to the dugout.

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“Yeah, a little bit,” Mattingly said. “Especially in the second [inning], right? You’re like, ‘Oh, not tonight.’ But once you get out there, you kind of see what it is. It’s not like a cut on a nail or anything like that where you feel like it’s going to keep getting extended. They did a nice job of stopping that.”

Justin Crawford gave Sánchez a 2-0 lead by cueing a two-out single inside the third-base line. It was up to Sánchez to keep it that way because the Phillies didn’t break things open with three runs in both the seventh and eighth innings.

Trea Turner, on his 33rd birthday, levied most of that damage, with an RBI double in the seventh and a two-run homer in the eighth. Don’t look now, but he’s 19-for-55 (.345) over the last 13 games, a welcome sign for an offense that is looking for more production from the right side of the plate.

“Is he going yet?” Mattingly said, mimicking questions about when Turner will get going at the plate. “I don’t know if he’s going yet or not. But to see Trea get a big hit down the line and then the home run, it really extends that lead where it saves us [from using] an arm in the bullpen.”

Sánchez leaned on his changeup, as usual, but continued to spin more sliders. After throwing 26 in his last start, he mixed in 17 against the Pirates, six of which came in his first 19 pitches.

No matter what he throws, Sánchez owns the Pirates. Six weeks ago, he struck out 13, a career-high, in a six-hit shutout in Pittsburgh. This time, he didn’t give up a hit until Nick Gonzales punched a two-out single in the fourth inning.

Sánchez is lined up to pitch Monday in Kansas City and July 11 in Detroit, the closing arguments in his case to start three days later (it would be his bullpen day) in the All-Star Game.

As you may have heard, it will be held in South Philly.

“[It would be] another goal, another dream come true and more when you think about it in this beautiful city,” Sánchez said. “The fans deserve that and even more.”

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Symbolically and strategically, Sánchez is a sensible choice to start for the NL. Misiorowski throws harder than any pitcher in history, with a fastball that’s been clocked at 105.5 mph. But Sánchez has allowed seven earned runs in 73 innings for a 0.86 ERA in 11 home starts. Since 2024, he has a 1.76 ERA in 280⅔ innings over 43 starts at home.

In his latest gem, he pitched out of one quasi jam, a two-on, two-out spot in the fourth inning, by striking out Endy Rodríguez on a signature changeup, and sidestepped a one-out double by Billy Cook in the fifth inning.

But even with a 100-degree heat wave rolling into town, it was no sweat compared to the Phillies’ dodging an injury to their ace. As Sánchez received a quick fix on the mound, Turner and other infielders looked on and laughed.

“They were just giving me a hard time and joking around on the mound,” Sánchez said. “You know, these guys are terrible.”

As long as the Phillies keep their pitchers healthy, the good times can keep rolling.

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Ricky Bottalico spouts opinions each day on sports-talk radio and the Phillies' television pre- and postgame show. But before all that, he had a solid career as a relief pitcher, even representing the Phillies in the 1996 All-Star Game at Veterans Stadium. With the baseball world set to descend on Philly again in a few weeks, Ricky Bo joined "Phillies Extra" to re-live his All-Star experience. Watch here.

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