The stroll to the outfield for his pregame warmups couldn’t have been any cooler for Phillies starting pitcher Cristopher Sánchez. And neither could his reaction.
Sánchez, about to make his third playoff start in the first game of the NLDS against the defending World Series champion Dodgers, took his cap off and raised his long right arm to the frenzied, early-arriving crowd who were showering him with adulation.
Turns out, the red-clad fans were just practicing their cheering before Sánchez’ acknowledgment, because then it became deafening.
The sellout crowd at Citizens Bank Park was never silent during a heartbreaking 5-3 loss to the Dodgers, who took a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series with Game 2 scheduled for Monday night. Sánchez kept the powerful Dodgers silent for most of his outing, as he allowed just four hits and two earned runs during his 5 2/3 innings.
But that wasn’t good enough, as Los Angeles took the lead for good the next inning when Teoscar Hernandez bombed a three-run, two-out homer off reliever Matt Strahm to lead the Dodgers to the win.
While Sánchez stated his outing wasn’t good enough for the win, his performance will go a long way into his march as a top starter in this league, because he knows how to make that happen.
“We lost tonight so personally I don’t care about how I did individually,” he said after striking out eight. “If we lose then I don’t feel good. One pitch changed the game for us and for me personally.
“Individually, even if I perform well, or whatever I do, if we lose the game then I don’t feel good. We’re a team. If we win then we win together and if we lose then we all lose together. I don’t feel good about losing.”
And that’s where he is, personally and professionally, in a nutshell. He has grown as much mentally as he has in height the past few years, in which he sprouted to six feet, six inches tall. His pitching can be documented by stats. His growth as a leader and top pitcher in the league is seen a bit differently. Like Saturday night.
“He was, again, really good,” said Rob Thomson. “The strike throwing ability. The changeup was filthy tonight. 65 percent strikes, 18 whiffs, 17 out of 24, I think, first pitch (strikes). He was fantastic. He really was.”
You could really bottle those quotes from the manager and insert them after almost all of Sánchez’ starts this season. He’s become that good. Good enough that the national media, who don’t see him that often, were overly impressed throughout the park.
It was just the third playoff start for the 28-year-old and the first since being anointed the team’s ace after Zack Wheeler was shelved by a blood clot near his right shoulder that ultimately required surgery.
Sánchez has embraced the new role with the passion of a veteran, but with the understanding that you never stop absorbing the lessons in this crazy game of baseball.
“To learn and to always learn,” Sánchez said of what he could take from last night’s devastating loss. “There’s always new things that you can learn from everything that you get. Learn from those things on this outcome and I think there’s a lot of things that we have to improve but take the good out of it and learn from it.”
As much as a crowd like Saturday’s can give adrenaline to a player, the withdrawal can also be real. Perhaps a little of that hit Sánchez during his outing.
“Yeah, he looked great,” said catcher J.T. Realmuto. “I thought it looked like he got a little tired there that last inning. He started falling behind hitters, wasn’t quite commanding his fastball the same as he was early on. But other than that inning he looked his old self. He was great.
“It’s not that he was at a ton of pitches but there’s a ton of energy out there. These games are draining. I looked up one point in the fourth inning, and I was exhausted. I couldn’t believe it was only the fourth inning. I can’t imagine what a starting pitcher feels like. That’s just part of the playoffs and for me, I think just the command of his pitches was a little off there in that last inning.”
He left the game with two outs in the sixth, having given up those two runs. His demeanor was much different than it had been earlier in the night when he went to the outfield for that warmup session. His shoulders were slightly shrugged, the frustration readable on his face. But as he spoke to the media following the game, Sánchez was thoughtful about what had happened, honest with his performance and professing his belief of team first.
In the short term, it is a hard loss for this team in a playoff series against perhaps the best team in baseball right now. In the long term, an experience gained by their top pitcher.
Red October coverage on NBC Sports Philadelphia is sponsored by Toyota.
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