Phillies' Ace Shockingly Has Worst Start of Career Against Royals

In a series loss to the Kansas City Royals, the Philadelphia Phillies saw their ace have the worst start of his career.

Jun 12, 2026; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA; Philadelphia Phillies hat on the field during batting practice before a game against the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Despite the Philadelphia Phillies playing very well of late, the team lost a strange weekend series that went into Monday against the Kansas City Royals. 

Due to the World Cup being in Kansas City on Friday night, the Royals and Phillies didn’t start their series until Saturday. A Friday off in baseball is not a common occurrence, and with it being a three-game series, it trickled into Monday afternoon. 

Unfortunately, Philadelphia was not able to defeat Kansas City in this series, losing two out of three games, including the rubber game on Monday. This is the first series that the Phillies have lost in nearly a month, with the Milwaukee Brewers series in the middle of June being the last. 

With it being a road series, anything can happen, and it certainly did. On Monday, despite having their ace Cristopher Sanchez on the mound, the team was run out of the building by a score of 15-1. In the loss, it was the southpaw who had arguably the worst game of his career. 

Sanchez Has Horrible Day 

Jun 30, 2026; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cristopher Sánchez (61) walks off the field after the fourth inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citizens Bank Park. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

With the All-Star Game coming up and Sanchez recently being expected to start the game with his next outing scheduled for Saturday, he had his worst outing of the season. In the loss, Sanchez allowed a career-high nine runs and tied a career-high in hits allowed at 12. Furthermore, with the Royals hitting three home runs, it was a day to forget for Sanchez and the Phillies. 

Coming into the matchup, Sanchez had an ERA of 2.00 and was very much in the conversation to be a front-runner for the NL Cy Young award. However, the brutal outing resulted in the southpaw seeing his ERA go up to 2.62. 

With a lot of talented pitchers in the NL this year, the Cy Young race was always going to be a challenge to win. However, this performance is going to be a major knock on his resume and has put a major dent in his overall numbers. In May, Sanchez was able to put together one of the best months of pitching in a long time, and didn’t allow a run over the entire month. 

Fortunately, Sanchez will have one more start over the weekend to get the taste of this one out of his mouth. The Phillies are set to be on the road against the Detroit Tigers starting on Friday, and it is the southpaw expected to take the hill. Hopefully, he will be able to bounce back from this outing and make it just a flukey one-off.