Cristopher Sánchez wanted in on the next Phillies playoff run. After a breakthrough year, he gets his chance.

Cristopher Sánchez watched the Phillies’ 2022 playoff run from their dugout. The left-hander was not on the postseason roster. He was on the taxi squad. But he liked what he saw. He’d never played in a ballpark with 40,000 fans hanging on every pitch.

“It was a different level of the big leagues,” the 26-year-old said. “And I liked that.”

So, last October, Sánchez set a goal: The next time the Phillies went to the playoffs, he would be on the roster. It was ambitious. At the time, he was coming off a season in which he’d been optioned six times to triple A, where he’d posted a 3.14 earned run average. With the Phillies, he had a 5.63 ERA in 15 games, with a 9.6% walk rate and a 19.8% strikeout rate.

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But he got to work. Sánchez showed up to spring training weighing 190 pounds. By the time he left, he’d put on 20 pounds. He cleaned up his diet, and began to fine-tune some of his pitches, specifically his changeup. In 2022, he tried to move his pitches to hit the corners, but this year he decided he’d let his stuff play in the strike zone. It helped his command.

The season did not start the way he wanted it to. Sánchez was placed on the injured list on opening day with a left triceps strain. But he pushed through his rehab, and six months later, he has achieved his goal. On Tuesday, Sánchez was named to the Phillies’ 26-man roster for their wild-card series against the Marlins.

“It means a lot to me,” he said, “because last year, I saw it from the outside, as part of the taxi squad. I was sitting in the dugout. But not on the field. Now, to be on the field, just a year later, it shows that the hard work paid off.”

It certainly has. In the span of a season, Sánchez has transformed himself into one of the Phillies’ most reliable starters. He is no longer a fringe player. They trust him.

This season, he had a 3.44 ERA in a career-high 99⅓ innings. The 20 pounds he added have helped him pitch deeper into games. The movement on his pitches has improved, too. His slider has more depth. His changeup is as good as it has ever been.

That has led to more whiffs. Sánchez is inducing strikeouts at a 24.2% clip, and has cut his walk rate by more than half, to just 4%.

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“The stuff was good,” said pitching coach Caleb Cotham. “So it was, let’s build the gas tank up a little bit bigger and then make the plan very simple. Because as I see it, there are two extremes: I can throw all of my pitches to all of the spots. Or I can throw all of my pitches in the zone with a mix and randomness. So I can be unpredictable. And that gives me more freedom to attack the plate. And that’s kind of what he’s done.

“There’s a belief that he can throw any pitch right over the heart of the plate. And if you mix enough, then they can’t sit on a pitch type. He has a 4% walk rate, which is elite. And I wouldn’t necessarily say that he’s commanding his pitches. He’s commanding the zone, commanding the count, but the average miss on his fastball, on his changeup, is pretty similar. It’s just over the plate now. His ball moves a lot.

“I tell people, he found out how good he was over the heart of the plate. He’s found that out. And he’s very good.”

Sánchez is so good, at this point, that he is in the conversation for starting a potential Game 3 against the Marlins if Ranger Suárez is used out of the bullpen. And he’s not just in the conversation because of his results this season. It’s also because of his mindset. He has matured in the past year. He has shown an ability to battle through adversity, which is an important quality to have in a postseason pitcher.

“Guys that are very good, and know they are capable of being very good, that’s a big thing to navigate in this game, as a starting pitcher,” Cotham said. “Knowing that you have to do this thing every five days. That you are good, and you’re expected to be good. Just the implied — call it pressure, but it’s just the responsibility. He’s learned how to handle that better. And you handle that by being in the moment, taking care of where your feet are right now.”

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Sánchez will be put to the test this week. But regardless of how his postseason goes, he is proud of himself for getting to this point.

“In spring training I was frustrated,” he said. “I had a chance to win a spot as a starter and I got injured. That frustrated me a lot. But I kept working — on my pitches, on my rehab, on my body — to get to that spot. And now I’ve achieved my biggest goal — pitching in the postseason.”