Phillies sweep Mets and push their magic number to one for a postseason berth

One more.

The Phillies posted a 5-2 win over the New York Mets on Sunday and reduced their magic number to one to clinch a postseason berth.

For the second day in a row, dark clouds loomed, but Mother Nature allowed the Phillies and the Mets to play nine innings at Citizens Bank Park. Cristopher Sánchez threw a gem, matching his career high with 10 strikeouts through seven innings. Sánchez did not allow a hit until the fifth inning as the Phillies swept the four-game series.

Orion Kerkering made his major league debut with the Phillies, coming out of the bullpen in the eighth inning to protect a three-run lead. The 22-year-old retired the side in order, inducing a ground ball and striking out two.

Sánchez’s changeup remains his most potent weapon. All 10 of Sánchez’s strikeouts came via his changeup, and he generated 16 swings and misses with the pitch.

“I feel the more I throw it, the better it gets,” Sánchez said via a team interpreter.

The left-hander rebounded from his last start when he surrendered three earned runs over four innings in a 9-3 loss to the Braves. The abbreviated appearance had been planned in advance to lighten Sánchez’s workload after going eight innings in his outing before, but he wasn’t sharp, surrendering seven hits.

Against the Mets, Sánchez made only one major mistake, when Ronny Mauricio got a hold of his changeup in the sixth and sent it over the left-field wall for a two-run homer.

Sánchez finished his night having allowed three hits and two runs with a walk.

“From the first day I saw him, however many years ago, four years ago, he was high velocity, couldn’t throw any strikes,” manager Rob Thomson said. “And now he’s a pitcher. With one of the best changeups in the game.”

The right-hander, who started his season in low-A, had a picture-perfect debut for the Phillies after being called up on Friday.

Thomson said pregame that the reason Kerkering didn’t make an appearance Saturday was because they hoped to have a comfortable lead for him. Kerkering pitched Sunday with a three-run lead and did not seem fazed at all.

“Once I hear my name and just hearing the crowd, I think [the nerves] went away at that point,” Kerkering said.

Added Thomson: “The only thing with guys coming up here is how they’re going to handle this environment. How they’re going to handle the third deck, 40,000 people in the stands. The passion of the city. And he looked like he wasn’t even sweating out there.”

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The major reason for Kerkering’s quick promotion was his slider, called a “big-league out pitch” by one Phillies scout. It proved as much on Sunday. Kerkering threw five straight sliders to the first batter he faced, Omar Narvaez, inducing a groundout.

“You hear so much about it, I wanted to go ahead and see it, first pitch,” catcher J.T. Realmuto said. “See what I was working with.”

Kerkering sat down the next two batters swinging, putting them both away with his slider.

“Everyone’s saying I’ve got big league stuff. I’m going to keep trusting what they’re saying,” Kerkering said.

Michael Lorenzen shut the door in a hitless ninth, picking up the save.

“It looked like [Lorenzen] was under control on the mound. He wasn’t grunting and groaning and trying to create velocity,” Thomson said. “So that was a good sign.”

A brief offensive outburst in the fourth proved to be all the Phillies needed to lock up the win. Bryce Harper walked to lead off the inning and advanced to third on a Bryson Stott single to right field. After Stott stole his 30th base of the season, J.T. Realmuto knocked them both in with a line-drive single to left field. Stott’s stolen base broke his tie with Trea Turner for the most this season on the Phillies.

Nick Castellanos doubled the Phillies’ lead with a two-run home run in the fourth. Realmuto extended his hitting streak to six straight games and finished the series with six RBIs.

“I feel like I’ve been putting together better at-bats recently,” Realmuto said. “I haven’t necessarily got the results I wanted a few weeks ago, but I felt like I was having better at-bats and putting good swings on balls, I just wasn’t having good luck. Lately the ball is kind of falling in my direction.”

In the fifth, the Phillies tacked on one more run, stringing together a Turner double and a single from Harper.