The San Diego Padres ended Cristopher Sanchez's record-setting scoreless streak, but they couldn't pull out a win.
The San Diego Padres stared down a tough pitching matchup tonight against Cristopher Sanchez of the Philadelphia Phillies and they were able to end his scoreless innings streak at 50-2/3, but the Padres still lost 3-2 as their offense couldn’t come up with a clutch hit at the right time.
Padres starter Walker Buehler was able to match zeroes with Sanchez for four innings, but the Phillies broke through against him in the fifth. The run scored on a pair of doubles by Bryson Stott and Adolis Garcia, but Buehler was able to escape from the inning without sustaining any further damage.
Buehler has always been a big game pitcher, and he certainly seemed to look at this one as just that. But Sanchez was mowing down Padres hitters. He passed Hall of Fame hurler Bob Gibson early in this one, and he looked virtually unhittable for most of the night.
Until the seventh inning. That was when the Padre finally broke through against Sanchez with their first run of the game, which scored via a double by Ty France and an opposite-field single by Jackson Merrill.
The run tied it at 1-1, and it ended Sanchez’s scoreless streak at 50-2/3. It put Sanchez fifth on the all-time list, behind only Jack Coombs, Walter Johnson, Don Drysdale and Orel Hershiser.
The tie didn’t last long, however. The Padres brought in Jason Adam to pick up Buehler, and J.T. Realmuto immediately hit a home run to left center that put the Phillies back up top, 2-1. The home run ended a streak of 12-1/3 scoreless innings for Adam, but it came at the worst possible time.
Kyle Schwarber followed that homer with another of his own later that inning to add an insurance run, as Adam simply didn’t have it in this particular outing. That made it 3-1, and that’s a deep hole for the Padres these days.
The Padres did rally, however, off of reliever Brad Keller. Consecutive singles by Fernando Tatis Jr. and Miguel Andujar put runners at the corners, but Manny Machado struck out. A walk to Gavin Sheets loaded the bases, and Xander Bogaerts then got hit by a pitch to bring a run home and make it 3-2, but Ty France grounded out to end the brief “rally.”
Closer Jhoan Duran came in for the ninth, and he struck out two of the three hitters he faced, allowing just a line drive out by Merrill. The win gave the Phillies their fifth straight victory in the season series, and the Padres have now lost eight of their last nine.
