Phillies Forefront Deliver Offense Behind Sanchez’s Tuesday Night Gem

In Tuesday night’s matchup against the Red Sox, it was the forefront of the lineup that had Cristopher Sanchez‘s back in his masterful start.

Sanchez threw his first complete game of the season, throwing nine innings of four-hit ball, allowing one run on 12 strikeouts and no walks, willing the way to a 4-1 victory over Boston, clinching the series win.

Bryce Harper, who is in his best stretch this season, ripped a single into right in a six-pitch at-bat in the first inning to advance Trea Turner to third. These two getting the ball rolling at the top of the lineup is so vital for second-half success.

Harper has been everything you could ask for in the three-hole for the Phils. He’s finally gotten the extra-base hits that he’s needed all season. His double in last night’s contest was his 13th XBH in 8 games. His stretch of dominance has raised his OPS by almost 100 points (.782 to .877) in those games.

As many Phillies would mention, when Harper gets going, the whole team does. So, Nick Castellanos then plated Turner with a single into center, putting runners on the corners again.

And in Harper-Fashion, it became a 2-0 game with some fun base-running antics.

We don't really know what just happened but it was electric pic.twitter.com/tSt74vxSoD

— Philadelphia Phillies (@Phillies) July 22, 2025

It was an attempted steal of home — and Harper was in fact safe, but it was ruled a catcher’s balk. Either way the bookkeeper puts it, the Phils put two on the board with their top of the lineup.

Kyle Schwarber was responsible for the fourth run on account of his 33rd Schwarbomb of the season; Schwarber’s been raising his free agency price on a daily basis — but who’s to complain now?

Schwarber, Harper, and Turner have been keeping this team afloat in their recent cold stretch — though it’d be remiss not to mention the starting pitchers who have been keeping the team afloat all season.

With that said, Sanchez was completely dominant tonight. It’s almost certain that he will be the Phillies’ number 2 starter in the playoffs, given they make it.

In his last five starts, he has a 1.25 ERA over 36.1 innings pitched — which is an average of 7+ innings per start — sheer dominance from the southpaw.

These numbers have only gotten better with the addition of his Tuesday night start. Sanchez went all nine innings on 106 pitches and struck out three of his last four batters — ending his and the Red Sox’s night with 12 strikeouts. There was no better way to end the game than Sanchez’s devastating change-up, which is in the ranks of Cole Hamels‘ own dirty change-up. Sanchez threw the pitch 45 times Tuesday night and garnered 14 whiffs on 22 swings.

It was called a strike 8 other times he threw it, meaning 50% of his changeups were in the zone and not touched.

Sanchez was tagged for four hits, but none of them with a runner on. His fourth inning was the only time the Red Sox got to him, and that was when Rob Refsnyder launched a solo homerun — though the Phils were still up 4-1. Alex Bregman reached on a single later that inning, which was the only time Sanchez faced five hitters in a frame.

A very timely complete game by the lanky southpaw allowed the Phils to save their bullpen for a potential sweep on Wednesday night. The bullpen went four innings of shutout baseball during Monday night’s extra-innings thriller, and now they’ll have a fully available roster of relievers during Sunday night’s nationally broadcast game.

Sanchez had only needed two runs tonight to win, but the top of the lineup had given him three, which is a decent description of the season so far — though Harper’s just getting started.

The Phillies will go for the sweep on ESPN’s broadcast at 7:05 PM, behind Jesus Luzardo and the forefront of the lineup.

Get new articles emailed right to your inbox.