Cristopher Sánchez Gave Up A Run

In the top of the seventh inning Wednesday night, with Cristopher Sánchez sitting at 81 pitches and his Philadelphia Phillies leading the Padres 1-0, San Diego's Jackson Merrill hit a single into the gap through left field, scoring Ty France and tying the game. This ended Sánchez's scoreless streak, which had lasted 50.2 shutout innings spread over more than a month. After the run scored, the Phillies fans in the stadium gave Sánchez a minute-long standing ovation. In a stunning display of the human element in the modern pitch-clock and ABS era, umpire Hunter Wendelstedt stepped out during the ovation and made sure home plate was clean.

While Sánchez had a good run at the longest scoreless streak of any pitcher in MLB history, he didn't quite get there. He will simply have to settle for having the longest-ever scoreless streak by a lefty pitcher, and surpassing Bob Gibson for the fifth-longest scoreless streak of all time, behind Jack Coombs (1910), Walter Johnson (1913), Don Drysdale (1968), and Orel Hershiser (1988). Sánchez is the only pitcher to break 50 consecutive shutout innings in the 21st century, never mind in the universal designated-hitter era; while Hershiser earned his 58 innings after the 1973 introduction of the DH, he played in the National League, which didn't adopt the DH until 22 years after he retired.

Sánchez's timing was also excellent. The streak started in late April and ended in early June, which meant that he was able to put together an absurdly clean May for the record books: your classic five-start, 39-inning, 0.00 ERA month. As Sánchez has now taught anyone not old enough to remember 1988, the primary absurdity of a 50-inning scoreless streak is the timescale. Starting pitchers only pitch every five days, if that, and without a totally limp offense in support, the maximum they can pitch in a game is nine innings. A 50-inning scoreless streak is weeks of tension. And even in that, Sánchez was efficient: His May stint included a 108-pitch complete game shutout of the Pittsburgh Pirates.