Phillies

The Phillies’ Starting Pitching is Top 6 in Almost Every Meaningful Category this Month

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Jun 20th, 2025 · 9:16 AM EDT

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After Cristopher Sanchez went eight innings strong in a 2-1 win on Thursday night, the Phillies’ June numbers for starting pitching:

• 2.89 ERA (2nd best)
• 1.94 runs allowed per game (third lowest)
• .225 opponent batting average (sixth lowest)
• .274 opponent on-base percentage (2nd lowest)
• .354 opponent slugging percentage (4th lowest)
• .629 opponent OPS (lowest in the league)
• 5.6 walk percentage (4th lowest)
• 21.8 strikeout percentage (smack in the middle)
• 1.08 WHIP (3rd lowest)
• 96.2 innings pitched (4th most)
• nine opponent home runs (6th fewest)

So on and so forth. This includes the last game of the Brewers series, then the entirety of the Chicago, Pittsburgh, and Miami series, plus the two series against Toronto. It includes starts from Sanchez, Zack Wheeler, Jesus Luzardo, Ranger Suarez, and Mick Abel. There are no Aaron Nola starts, since he’s been on the shelf since mid-May, but included is the Luzardo start in which he was blown up for eight earned runs in 2.1 innings, so imagine what the overall numbers would be if that single outlier wasn’t pulling the data in the other direction.

Nobody should be surprised by any of this, since we knew coming into the season that starting pitching was the strength of the team. And starting pitching alone is going to win them a lot of games, Thursday night providing a snapshot of what the playoffs might look like. The Phillies could only muster two hits against Edward Cabrera, and scored their only run against him with a fielder’s choice from Bryson Stott. Then Kyle Schwarber hit a solo Schwarbomb to make it 2-1 while Sanchez carried the Phils into a situation where they only needed one inning out of Orion Kerkering to get the W. Anything that keeps the bullpen in the bullpen is a good thing.

The margins are razor thin in the playoffs, as we saw in the 2024 NLDS especially. The bats aren’t always going to be there, but it seems as though the starting pitching will be.