It was one of those games.
A 2026 contest with a pitch clock, limited pickoff moves and two starters working fast.
Just over an hour into Saturday night’s matchup between the Phillies and Orioles in Baltimore, it was already the top of the fifth.
Cristopher Sánchez opposed Baltimore’s Shane Baz, and for most of the night, both starters controlled the pace.
Sánchez was coming off two good, but not great, home starts against the Dodgers and Yankees. After each outing, he was not especially pleased with his changeup.
The Phillies’ left-handed ace made sure it was sharper Saturday night in a 5-0 win over the Orioles.
Sánchez threw 99 pitches over six scoreless innings, allowed three hits, walked five and struck out 11. Three of those strikeouts came on the changeup, which helped set up his sinker and slider in key counts.
He did not have his best command.
Sánchez knew it.
“I didn’t like that many walks,” Sánchez said. “But I did like going six solid innings and putting the team in a good position to win.”
The changeup was better, too.
“It’s getting better,” Sánchez said. “It’s progressing well. I think it looked better today. It was coming out of my hand better. It could be better still, but compared to last outing, I think it was a lot better today.”
The sixth inning became Sánchez’s biggest test. His command started to drift, the Orioles pushed traffic onto the bases and the game was still 1-0.
He got out of it.
Afterward, Sánchez took a deep breath. He knew he had not been as efficient as he wanted to be, but he had kept the Phillies in front.
“It was big,” Sánchez said. “After the inning ended, I just took a deep breath and thanked God. Too many walks today, and we know that’s not the type of outing that I want. But after getting out of that jam, I thanked God for it.”
Don Mattingly saw the same thing. Sánchez was not perfect, but he fought through the parts of the night that could have turned.
“He did a nice job,” he said. “A couple innings there, getting out of jams. The last one, obviously, huge. That was big. Still a 1-0 game there. He just kind of hung in there and bowed his neck.”
There was also a little extra edge at the end of the sixth.
Sánchez appeared to yell toward the Orioles’ dugout after escaping the inning. He said one of Baltimore’s coaches had said something to him.
“What they don’t know is that those type of things motivate me,” Sánchez said. “I take that as fuel. That fuels me, and I get motivated by that.”
The Phillies backed him up, too, which has been a rarity lately.
Alec Bohm made a leaping catch to take away a hit and end the second. Justin Crawford made a sliding grab to open the fourth. In the fifth, Trea Turner made one of his best plays of the season, diving to his left, popping up and throwing to first in one smooth motion.
Sánchez entered the game with a .337 batting average on balls in play against him, the highest mark by any qualified Phillies pitcher. On Saturday, the defense behind him was steady.
Sánchez never blinked, and the Phillies eventually got to Baz.
In the fifth, Bryson Stott worked a one-out walk. Crawford grounded out, moving him into scoring position. Then Bryan De La Cruz, who entered the night batting .500 through his first 14 at-bats with the Phillies, got a center-cut fastball and ripped it back up the middle at 109.2 mph.
Stott scored, and the Phillies had their breakthrough.
This is not exactly a new conversation, but it still lingers. The Phillies have spent the better part of two years searching for more right-handed offense. So when a right-handed bat joins the club and starts producing, it stands out.
Lately, that has been De La Cruz.
The 29-year-old played for Mattingly in Miami and has been productive when given regular at-bats. Across his final two seasons of regular playing time with the Marlins and Pirates, De La Cruz had at least 46 extra-base hits in each year, with 162-game averages of 22 homers and 78 RBIs.
He struggled with Atlanta in 2025, finished the season with the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate and later won Dominican Winter League MVP honors.
The Phillies signed him to a minor-league deal in the offseason. He produced at Triple A, and Philadelphia gave him a major-league chance before he could opt out of his contract.
He has posted a 1.117 OPS since joining the club.
So far, so good.
“Just been solid,” Mattingly said. “He’s getting his hits. That was a big hit early. Hit another ball on the nose. It could have been another run.”
If the Phillies are unable to add a right-handed bat before Monday’s deadline, or if the market forces them elsewhere, De La Cruz has at least given them something to think about.
Stott gave them something else in the seventh.
With Baz nearing the end of his night, Stott worked a 15-pitch at-bat that included a near homer down the right-field line and ended with a base hit. The at-bat knocked Baz out after 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball.
“I was kind of getting tired,” Stott said. “At that point, it’s just a giant guessing game. You don’t know if the pitcher’s just over it and is going to try to throw fastballs down the middle to get it over with.”
That helped the Phillies get into Baltimore’s bullpen before their offense opened the game late.
“That was a great at-bat,” Mattingly said. “Fifteen-pitch at-bat, just misses a homer, still gets the knock. Those are huge for your club.”
After Sánchez exited, the uneasy feeling around the Phillies’ bullpen returned.
This time, it did not last.
Jonathan Bowlan, José Alvarado and Jhoan Duran handled the seventh, eighth and ninth, finishing off the shutout and giving the Phillies a needed win after four straight losses.
The eighth gave them room.
The Phillies drew three walks and collected three hits in the inning. Bohm and Brandon Marsh added RBI singles, and Crawford laced a two-run hit against the Orioles’ bullpen.
For a team that has spent much of the second half searching for answers, they needed a night like this one.
“The whole game felt like a clean game,” Mattingly said.
The Phillies will have a chance to take the series Sunday against the Orioles.
Then comes Monday’s trade deadline, with the same questions still hanging over them.
