Philly Front Office

On May 27th, 2026 Cristopher Sanchez broke the Phillies franchise record for consecutive scoreless innings previously held by the fantastically named Grover Cleveland Alexander. The previous record was 41.2 innings. In the background of this achievement, Sanchez was also making his fifth and final start of the month of May and had yet to allow an earned run. As the 100th and final pitch of his outing struck out pinch hitting Ty France, May had ended for Sanchez with 39 innings of unblemished baseball. It has only happened once ever in the long history of baseball, equaling Orel Hershiser’s September 1988.

November 20, 2019: Phillies Trade Curtis Mead for Cristopher Sanchez

For Phillies fans, while GCA’s scoreless streak was of primary concern, some of us couldn’t help but remember June 2011 when Cliff Lee managed one of the best months of all time. In his 5 starts that month, Cliff gave up just a single run. I couldn’t do it beforehand for fear of a jinx, so now it is time to compare Sanchy to Orel’s ’88 and Cliff’s 2011.

Orel ’88 vs Cliff ’11 vs Sanchy ’26

	Hershiser 1988	Cliff Lee 2011	Cris Sanchez 2026
Starts	6	5	5
Innings	55	42	39
ERA	0.00	0.21	0.00
Hits	30	21	25
Walks	9	8	3
Ks	34	29	45
CGs	5	3	1
BAA	.160	.151	.181
XBH	3	3	4
Batters	201	147	143

Let’s start with Hershiser. You may be doing some math here, wondering how he got to 55 innings in 6 games with only 5 complete games. It would have been 6, but the Dodgers lost his final start in 16 innings. He pitched 10 shutout innings that day! That means he pitched every regulation inning of every start that month, 54 in total. That’s ungodly impressive. He towers over the other two in terms of innings pitched and batters faced. The extra opportunities makes the 30 hits to only 9 walks that much more impressive. However, only 34 strikeouts lags. I get that not everyone is a strikeout pitcher, but it means that the overall output was put in the hands of his fielders much more. Think of it like this, Orel needed his defense to make 158 plays for him compared to only 110 for Lee and 95 for Sanchez.

The Cristopher Sanchez Contract

The most impressive part of Lee’s month was that it ended with 3 consecutive shutouts. When Orel played, complete games were still a pretty regular thing. there were 622 complete games that season with 182 being shutouts. By 2011, those numbers were down to 173 and 75.¹ Of the 75 shutouts that season, Lee had 3 of them in a row in June. It was nuts. By the 3rd one, we were all transfixed thinking he couldn’t possibly do it again…and he did. He did give up that run though. Even if he had the best batting average against of the three, it’s almost like Jalen Hurts outplaying Patrick Mahomes in SB 57. If you didn’t win, who cares?

There’s a strong argument to be made that Sanchez’s month was the most impressive of all due to the commanding lead in both strikeouts and walks. That is someone who had complete mastery of his pitches at damn near all times. Sure, he gave up a higher batting average than the others, but that’s just as much on the defense and luck than anything the pitcher could control. He also only had the 1 shutout in the month. However, let’s go back to the CG and SO numbers and see how 2026 is shaping up. Granted, it has only been 2 months, but we have only seen 7 CGs and 4 shutouts. They just don’t happen anymore.

In the End

In his first start in July 2011, Lee got lit up for 6 earned runs. He would go on to have an incredible year and miss out on the Cy Young thanks to his teammate, Roy Halladay, splitting his votes and allowing Clayton Kershaw to take the trophy. He had a good case to win the award though.

2011 Cy Young: Clayton Kershaw vs Roy Halladay vs Cliff Lee

Hershiser’s regular season ended with that 16 inning game, but he would start Game 1 of the NLCS against the Mets a few days later. Orel would take a shutout into the 9th before Daryl Strawberry doubled in Gregg Jefferies to end the streak at 67 innings. The Dodgers actually lost the game when reliever Jay Howell walked his first hitter then let up a 2 run double to Gary Carter. The Dodgers would go on to win the series and then the World Series with Hershiser winning World Series MVP. Postseason stats don’t count though. On Opening Day 1989, Hershiser gave up a first inning run to the Reds ending the streak officially at 59 innings.

As for Sanchez, all good things must come to an end eventually. I don’t want to think about that just yet though. Let’s focus on and appreciate his month of May 2026. Maybe the best month anyone has ever pitched.

Photo: AP

Stats: Baseball Reference

1. Thanks to Lee, Roy Halladay, and Cole Hamels the Phillies led the league with 18 and 7. Lee had 6 of the 7 shutouts while Halladay had 8 of the 18 complete games ↩︎