In the midst of a special season, Cristopher Sanchez gets one final postseason tune-up Sunday as the Philadelphia Phillies host the Minnesota Twins in the regular-season finale for both teams.
With Zack Wheeler out for the season, Sanchez (13-5, 2.57 ERA) will take the ball for Philadelphia in Game 1 of the National League Division Series next weekend. The Phillies (95-66) are locked into the No. 2 seed in the NL and will face the winner of the Los Angeles Dodgers’ wild-card series against either the New York Mets or Cincinnati Reds.
First, though, is Sunday’s affair in which Sanchez will look to punctuate the best regular season of his career. The left-hander is coming off a crisp effort Tuesday against the Miami Marlins in which he allowed just three hits over seven scoreless innings.
“Sanchy was great. He gave us seven really good innings — 91 pitches,” said Philadelphia manager Rob Thomson. “His changeup got better as the game went on. … His fastball command was outstanding.”
The Phillies came up short in Saturday’s affair, dropping a 5-0 decision to former teammate Mick Abel, now a Twins starter. The right-hander struck out nine in six scoreless innings to outduel Ranger Suarez, who allowed three runs and nine hits before exiting in the fifth.
“(The playoffs are) what we worked for throughout the whole year,” said Suarez, who left with a thigh contusion but will be ready for the NLDS. “That’s a team goal that we have, and to play into October, through October, and even in November. So that’s what we have in mind.”
A big key for the Phillies will be the health of shortstop Trea Turner, who has missed most of September with a strained right hamstring. Turner will return Sunday, although it seems unlikely he will play the whole game.
“He’s wanting to play … and the trainers deemed him healthy,” Thomson said when asked why Turner will return to the field prior to the postseason.
Turner and company will face Minnesota right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson (7-4, 4.27), who is looking to put an exclamation point on a strong September. He has a 3.00 ERA in four starts this month and limited the Cleveland Guardians to two runs over five innings in his most recent outing last Sunday.
Both of those runs came in the first inning before Woods Richardson settled down over the next four frames.
“It was a long one after that first inning, but I was like, ‘OK, you’ve got to buckle down and get going. You kind of wasted a lot of your pitches getting through the first, so now you’ve got to get going,’ ” Woods Richardson said.
The Twins (70-91) have already lost 90 games for the first time since going 59-103 in 2016. However, they are closing the season on a positive note, having won four of their last six games while allowing only 10 total runs over that stretch.
Meanwhile, the Phillies need one win to surpass their total from last season. They have not won more than 95 games since posting a franchise-record 102 wins in 2011.
–Field Level Media
