Phillies ace Sánchez's scoreless streak ends at 50 2/3 innings, 3rd-longest in more than a century

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Cristopher Sánchez finally allowed a run after 663 pitches, 190 batters faced and 50 2/3 scoreless innings — a feat that placed the Phillies' ace among Hall of Fame company.

After a run scored against the left-hander for the first time since last April, more than 40,000 fans at Citizens Bank Park stood and gave him an ovation that lasted more than a minute. Yes, those Phillies fans were cheering after a run was scored against the home team.

Sánchez held his stern demeanor for as long as he could, wanting to throw the next pitch. Finally, he cracked a smile. He raised his cap, wiped his forehead and Phillies fans and his teammates kept applauding Sánchez, celebrating a rare milestone in baseball history.

“It was a big moment, a huge moment for me,” Sánchez said through an interpreter. “I think that I just had to do something for the fans and react to the love that they brought it.”

Sánchez pushed his consecutive shutout innings streak to just short of 51 innings Wednesday night before allowing a two-out RBI single to San Diego’s Jackson Merrill in the seventh and earned the win after J.T. Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber homered in the seventh inning, leading the Phillies to a 3-2 victory over the Padres.

“It's something I never imagined in my life that I would do,” Sánchez said.

Sánchez's streak ranked as the third-best overall dating to the start of the Live Ball Era in 1920 behind the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Orel Hershiser, with a record 59 straight scoreless innings in 1988, and Don Drysdale with 58 in 1968. He struck out San Diego's Fernando Tatis Jr. and set the Padres down in order in the first to pass Carl Hubbell at 45 1/3 innings and become the career leader among left-handers.

Sánchez breezed through six scoreless innings before Ty France doubled with two out in the seventh. Lefty-swinging Merrill then punched a single to left that accounted for the only run allowed by Sánchez in more than a month.

“I know my vocabulary is probably not good enough for him right now,” Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said. “You could feel it every inning, they knew exactly what was going on."

Sánchez also passed Sal Maglie, Zack Greinke, and Bob Gibson on the shutout streak list since 1920. He surpassed Gibson's 47 consecutive shutout innings in the same 1968 season as Drysdale, dubbed the year of the pitcher.

Sánchez — throwing a changeup that averages 86.5 mph and holding hitters to a .153 average — hadn't been in any serious jeopardy of allowing a run since permitting two runs in the first inning of a 3-2 Phillies win over the Giants on April 30.

He worked seven shutout innings in his last start against the Padres to eclipse the Phillies' franchise record of 41 innings, set in 1911 by Grover Cleveland Alexander.

“You don’t get to see things like this very often,” Mattingly said. “It’s one of those things that’s not happened very often. It’s hard to categorize it. I don’t know if I’ve seen anything that’s really been better than this.”

Sánchez, who had had thrown at least seven shutout innings in five straight starts, struck out eight. He improved to 7-2 and lowered his ERA to an MLB-best 1.46.

Sánchez was named NL pitcher of the month for May earlier Wednesday. He went 4-0 and struck out 45 — with only three walks — over 39 innings in the month.

“It’s pretty cool what he’s doing,” Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper said. “Lot of punch-outs, as well, so that helps us on defense.”

Sánchez also set a Citizens Bank Park scoreless streak record at 34 2/3 innings, topping Cliff Lee (29 innings) and Roy Halladay (33) and he became the second pitcher this season to reach 100 strikeouts.

Sánchez was the NL Cy Young Award runner-up in 2025 when he went 13-5 with a 2.50 ERA and struck out 212 in 202 innings. He signed with the Tampa Bay Rays as an international free agent in 2013 and was traded to the Phillies six years later for infielder Curtis Mead in a little-noticed offseason transaction. He made his big-league debut in 2021.

“I remember they were talking about releasing him in 2020,” Harper said. “I’ve seen it from the jump, just kind of the way he approaches it. Just super special.”

Drysdale threw a major-league record six straight shutouts as part of his streak from May 14- June 8, 1968. Hershiser pitched six scoreless starts in September 1988 as part of his record-breaking streak. Hershiser, now a broadcaster for the Dodgers, said last week he was fine if Sánchez broke his record.

“I’m pulling for anybody to have a life-changing moment,” said Hershiser, who still holds the record.

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Philadelphia Phillies' Cristopher Sánchez pitches during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia Phillies' Cristopher Sánchez gestures as he walks to the bench after pitching during the during the third inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia Phillies' Cristopher Sánchez pitches during the first inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

Philadelphia Phillies' Cristopher Sánchez pitches during the third inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres on Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

The New World screwworm fly has reached south Texas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture confirmed Wednesday, the first time in decades that the parasite with flesh-eating larvae has threatened the nation's cattle industry and only the third time it's appeared in the U.S. in that time.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said the case was in a 3-week-old calf in LaPryor, Texas, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Mexico border. Texas State Veterinarian Bud Dinges said he has established a 12-mile (20-kilometer) quarantine zone, prohibiting the movement of any warm-blooded animal — including pets — outside that zone without an inspection.

Rollins said there have been no other detections of the fly in the U.S., and officials were quick to say that while the fly’s larvae are a threat to livestock production, they don’t infest food. Properly treated, even the infested calf should recover, Rollins said.

Rollins, U.S. and Texas agriculture officials, and cattle industry leaders have been sounding public alarms about the fly’s movement across Mexico for more than a year, spurred on by memories of it causing tens of millions of dollars of losses — potentially billions in today’s dollars — before its eradication in the 1970s.

It is the first case confirmed in Texas since 1966, Rollins said.

The months of effort to keep the fly out of the U.S. have included dropping millions of sterile screwworm flies in the area to mate with wild females — the same method used successfully before the fly was eradicated. Rollins said the USDA is confident enough in its preparations that it believes “there is no threat of mass infestation.”

“There is no reason to believe this incursion will result in establishment of the pest in our country," Rollins said.

The announcement of the suspected case comes only a day after Rollins had an online news conference to highlight the nearness of the threat, with cases been confirmed in Mexico as close as 25 miles (40 km) from the border — and to outline the USDA's efforts to combat it.

The New World Screwworm fly is a tropical species that decades ago infested cattle in warm weather across the southern United States, but it was contained in Panama until late in 2024.

The female fly lays its eggs in open wounds or mucous membranes and they hatch into larvae that eat flesh — making them unlike most fly species — and can infest livestock, wild mammals, household pets and even humans. Infestations can lead to death if left untreated.

In August 2025, federal health officials confirmed a case in a Maryland resident who had traveled to El Salvador, but the victim recovered and officials found no transmission of the parasite. Before that, the last outbreak was in the Florida Keys in September 2016, mostly among wild deer, and it was contained early the next year without spreading further.

The female flies mate once in their monthslong lives, and if they do so with a sterile fly, their eggs would not hatch — and the population would die out over time. Past eradication efforts were so successful that the U.S. shut down facilities for breeding sterile flies, leaving only one in Panama for decades.

That is changing. The USDA dedicated $21 million to convert a fruit-fly breeding facility in southern Mexico into one for breeding screwworm flies, opened a new center for dispersing sterile flies bred elsewhere in southern Texas and has started construction on a $750 million screwworm fly factory there. The breeding facility in Mexico should be operating next month, Rollins said.

Officials also deployed 8,000 fly traps along the U.S.-Mexico border, and Rollins said the USDA has tested more than 58,000 fly samples, along with 19,000 wild animals.

Rollins also closed the U.S.-Mexico border last year to livestock imports from Mexico, a decision she defended during her news conference Tuesday. The fly also can travel with people and their pets and with wild animals, officials noted, but Rollins stressed Wednesday evening that it doesn't fly great distances on its own.

Dinges said ranchers and pet owners need to understand that it's important to respect the quarantine zone.

“Please help us prevent any further movement of this pest by staying put,” he said.

FILE - A test container of dyed fly pupae are displayed at a Domestic New World Screwworm Sterile Fly Production Facility to combat the northward spread of NWS and protect American livestock, in Edinburg, Texas, Feb. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

FILE - An adult New World screwworm fly sits in this undated photo. (Denise Bonilla/U.S. Department of Agriculture via AP)