Fresh off their fifth-consecutive series victory since interim manager Don Mattingly took the reins, the Philadelphia Phillies (21-23) travel to their cross-state rivals, the Pittsburgh Pirates (24-20), for a three-game weekend series.
The series features two teams on hot streaks offensively as the Phillies, who lead Major League Baseball with 19 home runs in May, will look to outscore the National League’s highest-scoring team on the month in the Pirates, who have scored 67 runs since the start of May (insert joke here).
The weekend will also conclude with a matchup of two of the top starting pitchers in the league on Sunday.
The Phillies’ 12-4 record under Mattingly has led the team to climb its way out of an early season hole. Standing at 21-23, they are in in second place in the National League East, sitting 9.0 games behind the Atlanta Braves (30-14).
Pittsburgh, despite a positive 24-20 record, is fourth in what is shaping to be a strong NL Central. Chicago (28-16) holds first in the division while Milwaukee (24-17) and St. Louis (25-18) stand ahead of Pittsburgh. Even Cincinnati (23-21) is only one game behind Pittsburgh and yet, in fifth place, only 5.0 games out of first in the division.
Friday night's series opens with Aaron Nola facing off against Braxton Ashcraft. Nola will look to start evening out what has been a rough start to the season. The 12-year veteran showed signs of righting the ship on May 4, shutting out the Marlins in six innings before struggling at home against the Rockies, allowing three runs in 4 2/3 innings. While a majority of the Pirates’ lineup has not seen much of Nola on their careers, Marcell Ozuna (formerly with the Braves) has a .242 average and four home runs in 62 career at-bats against Nola.
The Pirates’ starter, Ashcraft, is a completely new pitcher to the Phillies with only a handful of players having one career at bat against the 26-year-old right-hander. The sophomore starter owns a 2.74 career ERA. He’s appeared in 34 games while making 16 starts, having started the 2025 season in the bullpen for the Pirates. Ashcraft has only allowed more than two earned runs in only one outing this season, most recently pitching seven innings of one-run baseball against the Giants.
Saturday’s mid-afternoon matchup features Cristopher Sánchez going up against Bubba Chandler. Sánchez currently is on a 20 1/3 inning scoreless streak dating back to the first inning against the Giants on April 30. His 67 (again with that number) strikeouts are the third most in Major League Baseball.
Other than a cool name, Chandler brings in an overall decent but unimpressive stat line. In eight starts this season, he owns a 4.62 ERA. Generally speaking, the Pirates can rely on Chandler to get through the fifth inning, allowing two or three runs scored along the way. But don’t worry, because the real pitching matchup is on Sunday.
This is one of those matchups that baseball fans everywhere will be tuning in for Sunday afternoon. Wheeler pitched into the eighth inning during his fourth start of the season on Tuesday, allowing one run. On that same day, Skenes pitched eight shutout innings against the Rockies, striking out 10.
These two outings just might be exactly what we see this Sunday. The type of game where the two teams need to do everything they can to produce a single run in the hopes that it will be enough.
After a successful stretch of games against some weaker opponents, the Phillies will need to turn up the heat a bit as they face stronger competition. As records currently stand, the next 21 games they play are against teams above .500.
If the Phillies can end this current stretch with a record at or above .500 themselves, then they might have a chance to catch up to the Braves by season’s end. The only way they will get this done, however, is one game at a time.
First pitch on Friday is scheduled for 6:40 PM. Let’s see if the Phillies can win the day.
