The Philadelphia Phillies will send an MLB-best eight players to the 2024 All-Star game. Fan’s selected Bryce Harper, Trea Turner and Alec Bohm to start in the exhibition, marking the first time in 42 years the Phillies sent three starters to the All-Star game.
When MLB announced the pitchers selected to participate in the Midsummer Classic, Philadelphia added four more names – starters Ranger Suarez and Zack Wheeler and relief pitchers Jeff Hoffman and Matt Strahm – bringing their total to seven.
Now, Phillies’ starting pitcher Cristopher Sanchez has been announced as a replacement for the Atlanta Braves’ Chris Sale, per MLB on X. Sale is having another incredible season but will miss the game due to a scheduled start on Sunday.
Despite three members of the Phillies’ rotation earning All-Star nods this season, Sanchez will be the only starter appearing in the game. Wheeler experienced back issues during his last start and will sit out and it was recently announced that Suarez would also miss the exhibition. He’ll be replaced by Max Fried of the Braves.
The eight All-Star representatives is a franchise record for the Phillies and two more than the Los Angeles Dodgers, who will send six players to Globe Life Field for the game on July 16, per MLB.com. Previously Philadelphia topped out at five All-Stars in a single season.
With that much star power it’s easy to overlook the accomplishments of some of the team’s lesser known players. Fortunately, Sanchez’s work this season has not gone unnoticed. The 27-year-old has been excellent as a back-end starter in a rotation that leads all of baseball with 527 strikeouts and a 3.20 ERA. Phillies’ starters are also best in the big leagues in batting average against, WPA and fWAR and second in WHIP.
Still, Sanchez has shined in a breakout season. Through 103.1 innings the fourth-year pro has a 7-4 record and a career-best 2.96 ERA with 2.4 walks/9, an ERA+ of 137 and a major league-leading 0.2 HR/9.
The Phillies add to their All-Star total with Cristopher Sanchez replacing Chris Sale
The Phillies boast the best record in baseball with four more wins than any other team entering Saturday. Thanks in large part to elite pitching Philadelphia has a commanding 8.5 game lead over the Braves in the NL East and an MLB-best run differential of +119.
The team has won 12 of their last 19 games going 5-4 during a crucial stretch when Harper and Kyle Schwarber were on the injured list. Since the duo returned, the Phillies are 3-1 heading into Saturday.
With Harper and Schwarber out, the Phillies’ starting All-Stars stepped up. Turner was especially hot during the pair’s absence, slashing .342/.359/.684 and posting an incredible 1.043 OPS. In nine games the veteran shortstop hit four home runs and a double, adding 11 RBI, eight runs scored and a stolen base. In that same period, Bohm added two homers, two doubles and five RBI with a .486 slugging percentage.
While the Phillies’ offensive All-Stars rose to the occasion with the team’s roster depleted, it was a mixed bag from the starting pitchers selected for the 2024 Midsummer Classic. Wheeler produced a quality start in his lone performance but Suarez didn’t fare nearly as well. The 28-year-old lefty has had a dominant season but is stumbling into the All-Star break with a string of poor outings. In his two starts with Harper and Schwarber out of the lineup, he posted a 10.24 ERA, giving up 11 earned runs in just 9.2 innings.
Newly minted All-Star Sanchez embodied the rotation’s mixed results in that stretch. He tossed a masterful complete game shutout giving up just three hits and striking out nine. But that performance was followed by a shellacking at the hands of the Chicago Cubs when he gave up seven earned runs in four innings of work.
Despite some inconsistency of late, the Phillies’ pitching has been outstanding this season – and Sanchez has been a major part of that success. The team has a better than 99.9 percent chance of making the playoffs and a 17.3 percent chance of winning the World Series, per Baseball Reference. With lofty expectations and a franchise-best eight All-Star representatives, it might be championship or bust this year for Philadelphia.
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