Turns out the pitching dual that was supposed to take place on Saturday at Citizens Bank Park was pushed back to Sunday.
While Phillies’ Zack Wheeler and Detroit’s Tarik Skubal combined for 13 innings, no walks and split 20 strikeouts, there were the six earned runs.
Instead, the real mound battle took place Sunday, and Cristopher Sanchez stole the show. A weekend that had a playoff feel in the three games against a Tigers team that is tied for the most wins in the American League, tilted the Phillies way as they took the tiebreaking third game with a 2-0 win.
This type of game was a baseball purists dream with outstanding pitching, phenomenal defense by both teams and timely hitting. All of those factors leaned a little more towards the Phillies as they improved to 63-48 on the year and now own a half-game lead on the Mets for first place in the National League East.
Sanchez rarely found himself in trouble during his eight innings of only 84 pitches. And the rare time that he did, his defense was there to erase it. It was the 10th shoutout win on the season for the Phillies and Sanchez improved to 10-3 while lowering his ERA to 2.40.
“It felt great,” Sanchez said. “I’m coming off a four earned start (at Chicago White Sox). I had months without that happening to me so I needed to change that and did it.”
He did it emphatically. It was obvious very early that Sanchez had his stuff as he threw just 10 pitches in the first inning, nine for strikes and struck out two. In the fourth, after giving up consecutive singles to start the inning, Sanchez struck out Spencer Torkelson before fielding a double play ball.
“It’s just control,” said Rob Thomson of Sanchez’ night. “Command of his fastball, changeup is just a swing and miss pitch. He can throw it at anytime and he throws it for strikes. Because of the velocity people have to gear up for that then all of the sudden this changeup with great arm action and a lot of depth gets him out front and they swing and miss. He’s really come on.
“I’m awfully proud of the work he’s done. He made a couple of really nice defensive plays, too. A couple of years ago that 1-6 throw that he made, might not be accurate. He’s worked on it. He’s the full package now.”
The game was really a full package game for the entire team. They got a run in the second on a Nick Castellanos single, a double by Brandon Marsh then a ground out RBI by Max Kepler. When things got a little dicey in the seventh with a pair of singles to open the seventh, Sanchez coaxed a ground out then was helped by the play of the night from Edmundo Sosa, who fielded a grounder and threw a strike to home to cut down Jahmai Jones for the second out. After a walk loaded the bases, Sanchez forced another groundout to end the inning.
“It was tough because the runner did a really good job getting up the line and blocking my view,” said catcher J.T. Realmuto. “Sosa made a great throw because usually he would want to throw that on the inside, but with where the runner was so far that he couldn’t make a throw inside the line so he threw it on the other side, which briefly I got blocked out of the ball but he put it in the perfect spot. It’s just instinctual on his part because it happened so fast. His instincts were really good on that play.”
Holding that 1-0 lead going into the bottom of the eighth, all thoughts were on an insurance run and Kyle Schwarber provided it by hitting a bomb into Ashburn Ally for his 38th of the season and the final margin of victory.
“Coming in there, going against (Tyler) Holton, a good left handed pitcher,” Schwarber said. “I took the first pitch as a strike, swing and miss at the second one and it’s just trying to put the ball in play, really. Trying to extend it to get to (Bryce Harper). Harp’s been swinging it great and I was just able to stick it out there and got enough of it and it went out. Obviously, insurance is great when you can add any sort of runs there, especially in a close game and you can kind of pad it.”
It’s more than great when you now have the luxury of getting to Jhoan Duran to close things out. He did just that, but not without a terrific play from Harper who leaped to get a high throw from Sosa and got down on the bag for the second out of the inning. Duran closed it out with a 103 MPH fastball on Riley Greene.
“Pretty good,” said Thomson of his closer’s outing. “Not sure I’ve witnessed 103. He was really strong tonight.”
The whole team was. In all areas.
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