Phillies ace Sánchez returns to form, delivers another dazzling outing with 10 strikeouts against the Blue Jays

It wasn’t the usual scoreless outing that has become routine over the past few weeks, but Cristopher Sánchez, the Phillies’ ace left-hander, put together another strong showing at Rogers Centre in Toronto today.

Last Thursday against the San Diego Padres, he surrendered his first earned run in 50 2/3 innings. Today, in the series opener—a 5–2 win over the Blue Jays—he worked seven innings, giving up two earned runs.

With the Phillies holding a 5–0 lead, Sánchez gave up his first run in the bottom of the third on a double by Myles Straw, followed by groundouts from Tyler Heineman and Yohendrick Piñango to end the inning. In the fifth, Ernie Clement jumped on a fastball and sent it over the left-field wall, a solo shot that brought the Blue Jays their second run.

The sixth inning seemed ready to produce a third Blue Jays run. Piñango led off with a double, and then right fielder Adolis García mishandled the ball, allowing the runner to reach third. Sánchez then struck out George Springer, Nathan Lukes, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in succession to escape the jam. He pumped his fist in celebration as he walked back to the dugout.

Sánchez allowed four hits and one walk while racking up 10 strikeouts. That marked his fourth start this season with double-digit strikeouts. With this latest effort, he also helped stabilize the Phillies’ rotation, which had given up a combined 16 earned runs over the weekend series against the Chicago White Sox.

Before the game, interim manager Don Mattingly had plenty of praise for the rotation, and Sánchez delivered exactly what was expected. “There’s always that feeling that Cristopher is going to come through as planned,” Mattingly said. “You figure he’ll go six or seven innings every time he takes the ball, and if he doesn’t, you’re pretty surprised.”

On offense, the lineup put up five runs on five hits, giving Sánchez enough run support to leave the game with a lead and in line for the win.