{"id":122955,"date":"2026-05-28T12:28:41","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:28:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=122955"},"modified":"2026-05-28T12:28:41","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T16:28:41","slug":"brilliant-month-phillies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/05\/28\/brilliant-month-phillies\/","title":{"rendered":"Brilliant Month For Phillies&#8217; Cristopher S\u00e1nchez"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher Cristopher S\u00e1nchez has recorded a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/phillies\/news\/cristopher-sanchez-s-record-setting-stretch-with-phillies\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">brilliant month and historic<\/a> May. S\u00e1nchez has set a new franchise record for consecutive scoreless innings. The <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/12\/14\/phillies-cristopher-sanchez-should-continue-ascent\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Phillies left-handed pitcher has continued to ascend<\/a> to stardom after a breakout 2024 season. S\u00e1nchez has solidified himself among the best pitchers in baseball right now. In May S\u00e1nchez recorded a 4-0 record with a 0.00 ERA and a 0.72 WHIP in five starts. Furthermore S\u00e1nchez has a 31.5% strikeout rate and a 2.1% walk rate this month. Opposing batters have a .181 average and a .266 BABIP against S\u00e1nchez in May.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Most consecutive scoreless outings of 7+ innings, since at least 1900:<\/p>\n<p>1988 Orel Hershiser: 6<br \/>\n1968 Don Drysdale: 6<br \/>\n2026 Cristopher S\u00e1nchez: 5 *active<br \/>\n2007 Brandon Webb: 5<br \/>\n1968 Bob Gibson: 5<br \/>\n1904 Doc White: 5 <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ld9PJIliKT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/ld9PJIliKT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) <a  href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SlangsOnSports\/status\/2059760469271892033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">May 27, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This season S\u00e1nchez has a 6-2 record with a 1.47 ERA and a 1.81 FIP in 12 starts. S\u00e1nchez has a 1.12 WHIP and a 5.94 K\/BB rate. Additionally S\u00e1nchez has a career best 29.4% strikeout rate and a 5.0% walk rate. Opposing batters have a .239 average along with a .337 BABIP against S\u00e1nchez this season. S\u00e1nchez leads qualified pitchers with a 3.3 fWAR this season. Furthermore S\u00e1nchez has the best ERA, FIP and WPA among qualified pitchers. S\u00e1nchez is also tied with Chris Sale and Michael Wacha for the most quality starts this season with nine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" image-id=\"WmOB0nkS17Za\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 3072px; aspect-ratio: 3072\/2048;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<h2>Phillies Ace Has Brilliant Month<\/h2>\n<h3>Comparison To A Prior Legendary Month In Team History<\/h3>\n<p>The brilliant month S\u00e1nchez put together has drawn comparisons to Cliff Lee&#8217;s June in 2011. Lee had a 5-0 record with a 0.21 ERA and a 0.69 WHIP in five starts. In addition to that Lee recorded a 19.7% strikeout rate and a 5.4% walk rate in that month. Opposing batters had a .151 average and a .191 BABIP against Lee in June of 2011. Lee pitched three complete game shutouts in June of 2011 compared to the one S\u00e1nchez has pitched in May of 2026. While opposing batters performed better against S\u00e1nchez than Lee, S\u00e1nchez recorded a better ERA, strikeout rate and walk rate in this brilliant month than Lee in June of 2011.<\/p>\n<h3>Underrated Trade In Team History<\/h3>\n<p>The Phillies acquired S\u00e1nchez in a trade with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2019. To get S\u00e1nchez the Phillies gave up then highly regarded infield prospect Curtis Mead. This trade has turned into one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/02\/five-best-phillies-trades-since-2000\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Phillies best trades since 2000<\/a> because S\u00e1nchez has turned into a superstar while Mead is a bust. Mead has been traded multiple times since and has a .238\/.312\/.350 line with 12 home runs and 51 RBI in 194 major league games. To add to that Mead has a 90 wRC+ and a 0.8 fWAR in his career. Meanwhile S\u00e1nchez has a 14.1 fWAR since the start of the 2024 season which is the best among qualified starting pitchers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"max-width: px\"><smartframe-embed class=\"smartframe_wp_element\" customer-id=\"b0c95bc04383cef69c6b47df872135cf\" image-id=\"WmOBnjNW4ZH0\" style=\"width: 100%; display: inline-flex; max-width: 3280px; aspect-ratio: 3280\/2187;\" ><\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n<h3>How These Performances Have Helped The Team<\/h3>\n<p>Phillies starting pitchers collectively have a 2.69 ERA and 4.3 fWAR in May. S\u00e1nchez on his own has a 2.1 fWAR that ranks as the best among qualified starting pitchers this month. This brilliant month from S\u00e1nchez has contributed to the Phillies leading the league with 18 quality starts in May. On May 16 against the Pittsburgh Pirates, S\u00e1nchez pitched a complete game shutout. There have been three total in May and S\u00e1nchez has one of them. As another <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/05\/18\/phillies-pitcher-dazzling\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Phillies pitcher is dazzling<\/a> with Zack Wheeler returning to form the Phillies have a top of the rotation duo that is the best in baseball.<\/p>\n<p>Mandatory Credit: Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher Cristopher S\u00e1nchez has recorded a brilliant month and historic May. S\u00e1nchez has set a new franchise record for consecutive scoreless innings. The Phillies left-handed pitcher has continued to ascend to stardom after a breakout 2024 season. S\u00e1nchez has solidified himself among the best pitchers in baseball right now. In May S\u00e1nchez [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4566,"featured_media":122961,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,23],"tags":[3218,28573,6247],"class_list":["post-122955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-phillies","tag-cliff-lee","tag-cristopher-sanchez","tag-curtis-mead"],"modified_by":"Ben Rosen, Staff Writer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122955"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122979,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122955\/revisions\/122979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}