Phillies’ Cristopher Sanchez Sets New Career High in Complete Game

As the season continues to progress, Christopher Sanchez continues to look more and more like the Cy Young contender he was during the 2025 campaign. 

That narrative continued on Saturday evening as the 29-year-old put together arguably the best start of his career in the Philadelphia Phillies' victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-0.

Sanchez pitched a complete-game shutout, which is the third of his career.

Outside of pitching all nine innings for the Phillies, the biggest standout for Sanchez during this start was simply his command of the zone. Sanchez threw 108 pitches, with 68 percent of them landing in the zone. Out of all of that, he didn’t issue a single walk or free base runner.

The other big number for Sanchez in this start was his 13 strikeouts, which set a new career-high for the left-hander.

Pirates hitters simply had no answers for Sanchez and his arsenal of pitches. The starter generated 17 swings and misses on his three-pitch mix of a changeup, sinker, and slider, with 12 whiffs alone coming on the offspeed pitch. Sanchez’s sinker was also solid with the average velocity of 95.6 mph in this start, a tick about his season average with this pitch.

All in all, Sanchez put on a pitching clinic on the mound.

The interesting piece of the start was that interim manager Dusty Wathan almost didn’t let Sanchez go out for the ninth inning, and Tanner Banks was warming and ready in the bullpen. There was no way the acting skipper was going to let Sanchez go over 110 pitches on his watch, either.

However, Sanchez made Wathan look like a genius in his first big-league game as a skipper, with Sanchez quickly shutting down the Pirates in the ninth inning. 

Looking at this from a big-picture view, Watan also pointed out that Sanchez was a swing man and long reliever for the Phillies just a few years ago. Now, he’s the ace of one of the better rotations in all of baseball. 

“To me, it's once in a lifetime transformation to go from where he was, to be in one of the best pitchers of baseball now. It's special. I think a lot of credit goes to him for all the work he's put into it,” said Wathan.

Sanchez's complete game shutout on Saturday is just one more chapter in his storybook, underdog career. 

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