On the right side of Cristopher Sánchez’s neck, in tattoo ink, appears a crown and one word underneath.
Blessing.
For big leaguers that go against Sánchez, the pitcher’s bounty has become their famine, leading to a historic scoreless streak.
The Padres didn’t become the exception Wednesday in a 3-0 loss to the Phillies that completed a three-game sweep in the East Village.
But the shutout defeat wasn’t another case of underachievement from Padres hitters.
Not with Sánchez riding an all-time heater.
A longtime good pitcher who has put it all together this year at age 29, the Dominican star did to the Padres what he’d done to several other lineups, and it added up to Sánchez breaking the Phillies’ scoreless mark set by Hall of Famer Grover Cleveland Alexander more than a century ago.
In 1911, when Alexander went on his run, Babe Ruth had yet to reach the big leagues.
Sánchez combines baseball’s best changeup with a high-speed sinker and slider that Phillies manager Don Mattingly, a former hitting star, said can be too hard for hitters to differentiate before it’s too late.
Stretching his streak to 44.2 frames, Sánchez also moved past Clayton Kershaw for the longest streak by a lefty in the expansion era, which began in 1961.
And also the Padres’ expense, he lowered his ERA to 1.49.
Let’s go big picture with these Padres, who are 31-24 after getting swept.
Losing to the Phillies, who’ve dug out of a poor start, matters more than losing to the Dodgers.
That’s because the Phillies (29-27) stand as a serious threat in the wild-card races, and overcoming the Dodgers in the West race just isn’t realistic.
That said, the sweep owed more to the Philies being good than the Padres being way off their game.
The Padres got fine outings from starting pitchers Griffin Canning and Walker Buehler. On offense, although the overall work was surely below average, two of their underperforming regulars, Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill, did show improved form on Wednesday.
Defensively, the Padres had a solid series. Special mention goes to Fernando Tatis Jr., who has become a very good second baseman. He made a special play Wednesday that recalled some of his gems as a young shortstop. Responding to a deep blooper, he got a great jump, ran it down and made an overhead basket catch a la Willie Mays in the 1951 World Series.
But once again, the Phillies showed they’re better at higher-level baseball.
Phillies star Kyle Schwarber, 33, has aged as a hitter better than Padres stars Machado and Xander Bogaerts, who also are 33.
Schwarber doesn’t come near matching those players’ defensive value, but the Phillies designated hitter’s rare hitting ability makes the Phillies a big problem. In the opener, he homered in the first inning off a difficult changeup from Canning and singled ahead of a teammate’s two-run homer. Wednesday, a day after Padres manager Craig Stammen said his team has to solve Schwarber, the lefty pulled lefty Adrian Morejón’s 100 mph, full-count pitch for a single to break a 0-0 tie in the sixth.
The Phillies have one of sport’s best rotations, and that showed up.
Lefty Jesus Luzardo, long known for his very good stuff, displayed poise and savvy in leading his team to the shutout Monday.
Sánchez showed he’s more than a “stuff” pitcher, too.
Asked if he had his best pitches Wednesday, he laughed and responded in Spanish before a translator could speak in English.
“No, no, no, no,” the Dominican said.
Sánchez said that when his friend Machado belted his sixth-inning sinker to deep center field, he figured it would go for a game-tying, scoreless-streak-ending home run.
Denying Machado a one-out double or triple, Phillies center fielder Justin Crawford made a terrific running catch against the wall.
So it goes for the Padres against the Phillies.
Four years ago, the Phillies knocked them out of San Diego’s first National League Championship Series since 1998. This week’s sweep dropped the Padres to 22-49 (.310) against the Phillies at Petco Park, which opened in 2004.
And while all Padres opponents try to avoid having to face Mason Miller, the sport’s top closer since last August, the Phillies got it done by never trailing and leading for 22 of the 27 innings in the series.
“They’ve got great pitching,” Mattingly said of the Padres. “We were able to keep them down this series. We’re going to go to L.A, and they’re going to come right back — so we’ll see what happens in Philly.”
The Padres will begin the two-city trip Friday in Washington D.C., against a high-scoring, pitching-poor Nationals club. For a team that scored just five runs in the final five games of a 3-6 home stand, the contrast in opponents will serve as a useful measuring stick.