Cristopher Sanchez is now within touching distance of one of the most remarkable pitching records in Philadelphia Phillies history.
The Phillies left-hander extended his active scoreless innings streak to 37 2/3 innings against the Cleveland Guardians , even though Philadelphia still lost 1-0 on Kyle Manzardo 's ninth-inning pinch-hit home run.
Sanchez now trails only Grover Alexander's 41-inning streak from 1911 on the franchise list since the mound moved to its current distance in 1893.
Photo by Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
SlangsOnSports highlighted how close Cristopher Sanchez is to the top of the Philadelphia Phillies' scoreless innings list.
Only Grover Alexander's 41 scoreless innings from 1911 remain ahead of him, while Sanchez has already passed Cliff Lee 's 34-inning run from 2011 and moved beyond the 32 2/3-inning marks shared by Larry Andersen in 1984 and Dick Farrell across 1957-58.
He has also cleared more recent and historic Phillies names, including Ranger Suarez 's 32-inning streak from 2024, Robin Roberts' 32-inning streak from 1950 and Ken Heintzelman's 32-inning streak from 1949.
The gap is now simple. Sanchez needs 3 1/3 more scoreless innings to tie Alexander and four clean innings in his next start to stand alone with the Phillies record.
Sanchez did everything possible to give the Phillies a chance against Cleveland, throwing eight scoreless innings while allowing four hits, walking two, and striking out six.
His problem was that Guardians starter Gavin Williams matched him pitch for pitch, striking out 11 across eight scoreless innings before Manzardo finally broke the game open against Jhoan Duran in the ninth.
The 1-0 loss did not damage Sanchez's personal streak, which now sits as the second-longest in Phillies history behind only Alexander's 41-inning run from 1911.
The Phillies will be frustrated that such a performance still ended in defeat, but Sanchez's record chase gives them another reason to believe his current form is not just a hot stretch.
If he keeps the opponent off the board through the fourth inning, the Phillies will have a new scoreless-innings king more than a century after Alexander set the standard.
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