{"id":627478,"date":"2026-04-24T08:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627478\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T08:18:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T08:18:17","slug":"phillies-takeaways-sanchez-struggles-garcias-change-in-setup-and-some-momentum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/627478\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies takeaways: S\u00e1nchez struggles, Garc\u00eda\u2019s change in setup, and some momentum?"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO \u2014 The sinker was supposed to fall along the outer edge of the zone, where catcher Garrett Stubbs had set up.<\/p>\n

Instead, Cristopher S\u00e1nchez threw it down the heart of the plate and Michael Busch quickly crushed it 421 feet into the Wrigley Field bleachers for a three-run homer in Thursday\u2019s third inning.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, bad outing,\u201d S\u00e1nchez said via interpreter Diego D\u2019Aniello. \u201cMy only good pitch today was the changeup, and I missed too many spots with the sinker. \u2026 Tomorrow\u2019s another day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tomorrow\u2019s another day has been the refrain of seemingly everyone in the Phillies organization during a nightmarish losing streak that stretched to nine Thursday with an 8-7 loss in 10 innings<\/a>. The problems are everywhere. S\u00e1nchez probably does not rank high on the list.<\/p>\n

But the lefty who finished runner-up in National League Cy Young Award voting last season has looked slightly more human this year. He has allowed 35 hits across his last four starts, the most of any four-game stretch in his career. Twenty of those have come in his last two outings, both against the Chicago Cubs.<\/p>\n

Still, until Thursday, he had been able to limit the damage. The number of earned runs he gave up against the Cubs (six) surpassed his season total entering the game (five).<\/p>\n

The sinker has been an issue so far. S\u00e1nchez did not locate it well Thursday, giving up multiple hits on misplaced pitches. Entering the start, opponents were hitting .328 against the pitch, but with a .269 expected average \u2014 which is exactly what opponents batted off of it last year. The velocity is down just a bit, averaging 94.7 mph this season compared to 95.4 mph last season.<\/p>\n

In a time when the Phillies are looking for anything to go right, anyone\u2019s difficult day will get much more attention than is warranted. There is little reason to hit the panic button about S\u00e1nchez. He is still effective, just slightly less sharp.<\/p>\n

Adolis Garc\u00eda makes adjustments<\/p>\n

The malaise is widespread in the Phillies\u2019 lineup. Adolis Garc\u00eda, the latest in a string of outfield bounce-back candidates, has certainly been part of it. He entered a planned off day on Thursday batting .200\/.300\/.257 with a .557 OPS in his last 10 games. Then he hit his first career pinch-hit home run in an important spot in the ninth to help send the game to extra innings.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s been a battle at the plate recently, so Garc\u00eda and the Phillies hitting coaches tried something new early in the Cubs series. Garc\u00eda returned to his batting setup from 2023, the year he hit 39 home runs and was named American League Championship Series MVP. It didn\u2019t pan out.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just couldn\u2019t get comfortable with it,\u201d hitting coach Kevin Long said. \u201cWhen you don\u2019t feel good, I certainly understand that. It just didn\u2019t come back to him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Adolis Garc\u00eda\u2019s setup at the plate on Monday. (NBC Sports Philadelphia screenshot)<\/p>\n

Now, Garc\u00eda is back to presetting his bat a bit lower, as he tried in spring training. The results have not materialized, but the metrics are encouraging.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Adolis Garc\u00eda\u2019s setup at the plate on Thursday. (NBC Sports Philadelphia screenshot)<\/p>\n

The Phillies faced a tall task in cutting Garc\u00eda\u2019s chase rate, but there has been significant improvement (29.8 percent in 2026 versus 35.8 percent in 2025). Yes, he\u2019s chased more lately. Long sees that as him chasing hits and certain results amid a cold stretch.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that\u2019s our job to make sure that he stays in the zone and trusts himself,\u201d Long said.<\/p>\n

A shift in momentum, perhaps<\/p>\n

The Phillies lost their ninth straight in what seemed like heartbreaking fashion, scoring five runs in the late innings before falling in extras. But Kyle Schwarber said he did not find it as gut-wrenching as it looked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say that\u2019s how we play,\u201d Schwarber said. \u201cThat\u2019s the way we should go about our day, every single day. Where we give up some runs, whatever it was, and we were able to respond, keep fighting back.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Phillies, entering Thursday\u2019s game, played particularly poorly in any sort of \u201cclutch\u201d situation. They were hitting .231\/.309\/.278 with a .587 OPS in late and close situations, and .157\/.286\/.241 with a .527 OPS with two outs and runners in scoring position. They had scored 18 runs in innings seven through nine in their 24 previous games. They scored five against the Cubs in those innings on Thursday. Plus, they went 2-for-11 with RISP \u2014 a statistic that might not sound good, but is an improvement for this group.<\/p>\n

There were imperfect moments on Thursday, particularly a ninth inning in which the Phillies had two runners on with no outs and ended up not scoring. But there is good to build on, the Phillies feel.<\/p>\n

Said manager Rob Thomson: \u201cIt\u2019s tough, but you feel good about the way they battled. \u2026 As the game went on, the at-bats got better and better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lineup played more like the Phillies of late 2025, undaunted by any deficit. Perhaps that\u2019s the type of play they\u2019re working toward. Or not. But, for the first time in nine games, the Phillies showed potential in the late innings. There were signs of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO \u2014 The sinker was supposed to fall along the outer edge of the zone, where catcher Garrett…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":627479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,2365,85],"class_list":["post-627478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}