It was an odd one Monday night in South Philadelphia as the Phillies kicked off their three-game series against the Miami Marlins. Cristopher Sánchez continued his stretch of incredible results despite allowing traffic throughout.
In this one, base runners were a plenty for Philly as they reached safely 19 times, pushing across six to squeak out the victory. They scored as early as the third and as late as the eighth, needing each and every one they earned to hang on for the 6-5 win.
Sánchez earned the win, Jhoan Duran came in to earn the save, and the Phillies may need to toss an assist to first base umpire Shane Livensparger and the folks in the MLB Replay Command Center in New York. We will get to that shortly.
Sánchez has some incredible numbers over his last five starts. Including tonight, he has a 1.86 ERA and an 11.17 K/9 over that stretch. However, something else was familiar tonight; his performance did not look as dominant as the results indicate. That is the measure of a great pitcher. Not having your best night and still looking great in the box score.
The Phillies ace went six innings, scattering eight hits and three walks but limited the damage to just one run allowed. When you dig a little deeper, it was a roller coaster that never quite reached the big drop.
Sánchez was on early, firing a first-pitch strike to every Marlin hitter the first time through the order. He followed that by opening six of the next seven plate appearances with a ball, and the seventh was off the plate but put in play by Javier Sanoja (more on him in a moment).
Five of his six strikeouts came in the first three innings, four of which were looking. He got at least one backwards K with each of his pitches.
“I thought he was good,” interim manager Don Mattingly said of his starter’s outing. “That’s kinda what [Sánchez] does. He gets some traffic, hangs in there and gets the ball on the ground.”
As mentioned, the numbers lately have been confusing. His ERA is minuscule over his last five starts, but he is also allowing almost a hit per inning while averaging 4.07 walks per nine and just under six innings per start. Mattingly was asked if he is concerned that this trend of increased base runners could come back to bite his star pitcher:
“Any time a guy gets on base or gets to second, you’re always in some sort of danger, but that’s gonna happen. I’m not worried about later, I’m worried about now.”
Philadelphia’s offense is not known for getting on base this season. While that has started to reverse course as of late, the fact remains they have been at or near the bottom in on-base percentage all season, having to rely on extra-base hits - mostly home runs - to get runs across the plate.
Tonight, they had a different approach. They got on by any means necessary: 11 hits, 10 of which were singles, seven walks (tied for their 4th most this year) and a hit batter. That’s 19 men on base, something they accomplished just eight other times this season. Over ninety percent of their hits were singles. That is the highest rate of singles in a game in which they tallied double-digit hits.
It led to them being able to keep tacking on runs throughout, something that ended up being very important.
Other important moments
Finally, the tease pays off. In a one-run victory, any small thing can swing the result. Monday night, it was an honest mistake from an umpire that may have saved the game for the Phillies.
With the bases loaded, Sanoja ripped a ball down the first base line that was originally ruled foul by the first base ump Livensparger. He was jumping out of the way and trying to look underneath himself to make the call. It was wrong.
Miami rushed to challenge the call, and it was successfully overturned. Their problem? Two runs scored as a result, not three. Marlins manager Clayton McCullough was upset enough to be ejected from the game, but the result remained the same.
As Don Mattingly said postgame, you cannot guarantee that runner would have scored. But he would not have been surprised if the replay group awarded all three runs to Miami. The next Marlin would strike out, stranding two instead of one, and keeping the game just out of reach.
Another key moment that won’t show up on any box score was in the seventh. With Alec Bohm on third base and Derek Hill at the plate, Victor Vodnik fired a wild pitch past his catcher. Bohm started for home plate, but he and Hill both read the hard carom off the backstop perfectly, and Bohm stayed put. One pitch later, he would cross the plate after Hill drew a bases-loaded walk.
Bohm would have been dead to rights at the plate. Instead, Philadelphia scored one more necessary run.
Philly has now won four in a row and can take the series with a victory tomorrow. Zack Wheeler takes the ball with a chance to add some separation between themselves and their division rival in the Wild Card race.
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