PHILADELPHIA -- Chris Sale matched up against a fellow Cy Young Award candidate, but it was his battle against a fellow Hall of Fame candidate that highlighted his performance in the Braves' 3-1 win over the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on Saturday night.
Sale limited the Phillies to one run over a season-high seven innings, and he passed Braves legend Tom Glavine on the all-time strikeouts list. The Atlanta hurler’s strikeout of Felix Reyes in the seventh was the 2,608th of his career, moving him past Glavine (2,607) and into 29th on the all-time list.
Sale now ranks eighth all-time among left-handed pitchers. He needs three strikeouts to pass Chuck Finley on that list.
The most satisfying of Sale’s five strikeouts concluded an 11-pitch battle against Bryce Harper in the fourth. Philadelphia’s two-time MVP and the 2024 Cy Young Award winner both displayed the determination that has helped them become potential Hall of Famers.
Harper fouled off three straight 2-2 pitches and then looked at an up-and-in fastball. He then fouled off two straight full-count sliders before swinging through a 96.2 mph fastball that was also high and inside.
Getting Harper to swing at ball four marked the start of a run during which Sale retired 13 of the last 14 batters he faced. Edmundo Sosa singled in the fifth, but was immediately retired by a double-play groundout.
While Sale avoided trouble, Phillies starter Cristopher Sánchez encountered some misfortune during this pitchers' duel. He was fortunate that Brandon Marsh leapt over the center-field wall to rob Ronald Acuña Jr.’s bid to homer on the game’s first pitch. But his good fortune disappeared in the third, when the Braves tallied three runs on three hits, two of which had an exit velocity of less than 70 mph.
Sale completed seven innings for the first time since Sept. 16 and lowered his ERA to 2.79 ERA through his first five starts of the season.