The Phillies’ weekend trip to Kansas City ended with a jolt nobody saw coming.
Philadelphia dropped two of three to the Royals, and the finale on Monday turned into a nightmare. With Cristopher Sanchez on the mound, the Phillies were blasted 15-1, and the left-hander endured what was easily the roughest outing of his career.
The series itself had an odd setup from the start. Because the World Cup was in Kansas City on Friday night, the teams didn’t open the set until Saturday, and the three-game schedule spilled into Monday afternoon. By the end of it, the Phillies had lost their first series in nearly a month, with the Milwaukee Brewers series in the middle of June the last one they had dropped.
Monday was the one that got away from them in a big way. Sanchez, who had been lined up to start the All-Star Game and was scheduled to make his next outing on Saturday, was tagged for a career-high nine runs and matched a career-high by allowing 12 hits. Kansas City also hit three home runs, turning the afternoon into a long one for Philadelphia.
The numbers were brutal, especially considering where Sanchez had been coming in. He carried a 2.00 ERA into the matchup and had been firmly in the mix as a front-runner for the NL Cy Young award. After the loss, that mark jumped to 2.62.
That kind of blow can linger, especially in a year with so many strong NL pitchers in the mix. Sanchez had already put together one of the best months of his career in May, when he didn’t allow a run all month. But this one will stick out on the wrong side of the ledger.
He’ll get a chance to move past it quickly. The Phillies head to Detroit to face the Tigers starting Friday, and Sanchez is expected to take the ball. For Philadelphia, the hope is simple: that Monday was just a one-off, not the start of something bigger.
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