Cristopher Sánchez breaks Grover Cleveland Alexander's 115-year-old Phillies record scoreless streak
Cristopher Sánchez has taken his game to new heights in 2026 — and now has broken a 115-year-old Philadelphia Phillies franchise record.
Sánchez extended his scoreless streak Wednesday against the San Diego Padres to break baseball immortal Grover Cleveland Alexander's franchise record of 41 innings, set in 1911.
The Phillies' ace entered Wednesday with a 37 2/3-inning scoreless streak and needed four full innings to break the record. He did that and more. Sánchez threw seven scoreless frames to extend the streak to 44 2/3 innings. He leaves San Diego with a 1.47 ERA.
Sánchez's final line: seven innings, six hits and nine strikeouts. His fifth strikeout of the game was his 600th of his career.
He finishes May by throwing 39 scoreless innings with 45 strikeouts and three walks in the month.
Orel Hershiser owns the MLB scoreless inning streak record at 59 innings, set in 1988.
In his last start, Sánchez passed Cliff Lee's 34-inning scoreless streak set in 2011 to move into second place in team history. Sánchez allowed four hits, no runs and struck out six in eight innings. He lowered his ERA to 1.62. The Phillies lost, 1-0, to Cleveland.
The 29-year-old Sánchez has raised his game to a different level in 2026, a season after he finished as the National League Cy Young runner-up. Coming into Wednesday, Sánchez led MLB pitchers with a 3.7 bWAR, and his 2.8 fWAR was tops in the NL.
Sánchez owns the NL's lowest ERA and leads the majors in innings pitched (72 1/3 innings).
The Phillies shut out the Padres 3-0 Wednesday to start their West Coast trip with a three-game sweep of San Diego. Up next, an off day Thursday and then a weekend series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
