(Photo credit: Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images)
Zack Wheeler and the Philadelphia Phillies aim to sweep their season series with the visiting San Diego Padres when the teams square off Thursday afternoon.
The Phillies are 5-0 against the Padres this season, sweeping a three-game set in San Diego last week and taking the first two contests of this week's series at Citizens Bank Park. Each of their two wins in this series has come by the score of 3-2, including Wednesday's triumph in which Cristopher Sanchez continued to take center stage.
The Philadelphia left-hander extended his scoreless streak to 50 2/3 innings on Wednesday before eventually allowing a run with two outs in the seventh. His mark is the fifth-longest in MLB history and the longest ever by a southpaw.
'I know my vocabulary is probably not good enough (to describe) him right now,' Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly said. 'But it's just been amazing to watch.'
After the Padres tied Wednesday's contest at 1-1 in the seventh, J.T. Realmuto and Kyle Schwarber homered in the bottom of the inning to give Philadelphia the lead. Jhoan Duran closed things out in the ninth as the Phillies sent the Padres to their eighth loss in nine games.
'We've got to figure out a way to match them and bring our A-game tomorrow,' said San Diego manager Craig Stammen, who added: 'It's the major leagues. You're always going to face a good pitcher. They're up at this level for a reason. We've got major league hitters, so we've got to find a way to score some runs.'
The reality is that neither team is scoring many runs of late. The Phillies have not scored more than four runs in any of their last 13 games, while the Padres have only scored seven runs in their five games against Philadelphia this season.
The Phillies will try to complete the sweep as they turn to Wheeler (4-1, 2.27 ERA), who suffered his first loss of the season Friday against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The veteran right-hander allowed four solo homers in six innings that day after giving up a total of one homer in his first six starts of 2026.
'It's baseball,' Wheeler said. 'It's a weird sport when things happen. Sometimes you feel out of whack and you do well. Sometimes you don't.'
Wheeler is 5-1 with a 2.17 ERA in his career against the Padres.
San Diego will counter with Lucas Giolito (2-0, 4.97), who signed with the team in April and has made three starts since joining the squad. The worst of those three outings took place Friday against the Washington Nationals, who reached the right-hander for four runs, five hits and four walks in 2 2/3 innings.
'Just terrible,' Giolito said. 'The stuff we've been trying to work on is not taking hold at game speed. ...It's not viable to have short outings like this.'
In three lifetime starts against Philadelphia, Giolito is 1-1 with a 5.74 ERA. He'll certainly want to keep a close eye on Schwarber, who leads the majors with 23 homers.
In his career against Giolito, Schwarber is 4-for-15 with one homer. Trea Turner has homered twice versus Giolito in seven at-bats, while Bryce Harper is 2-for-5 against him with a pair of home runs.
--Field Level Media
