May 17, 2026
The Phillies have done it. After digging into a 9-19 hole to start the year that cost their Opening Day manager his job, a sweep over the cross state Pirates has the Phillies with a winning record again.
This is, the team hopes, just the start, as they take their blazing hot offense and pitching into the toughest stretch of the season ahead.
Before the Phils return home to host the Reds Monday, we decided to channel our inner Jimmy Kempski and hand out 10 awards after a memorable series win that saw the team shutout Pittsburgh twice in a row after completing an epic extra innings comeback win.
In Saturday's win, last year's NL Cy Young runner up Sánchez threw a six-hit shutout — the second of his career. It's an impressive feat in an era without many complete games anymore. He struck out 13 Pirates, a career high and was positively dazzling as he only ever really was threatened late in the game when the Phillies win was all but assured already.
Entering Sunday, Sánchez leads all NL pitchers in ERA, in total strikeouts, in innings pitched and is second in pitching WAR. If he keeps this up, he'll follow Roy Halladay as the next Phillies ace to win a Cy Young award.
Where to even begin. Harper has been a monster. In the opening game in Pittsburgh, Harper had four hits, and two RBI in an 11-9 comeback win (more on that in a bit). The next afternoon, with Pirates starter Bubba Chandler struggling early with control, Harper sat back and blasted a 3-1 pitch 457 feet to dead center to put Philly up 3-0 (they'd win 6-0 thanks to Sánchez' dominance). And on Sunday he hit a sixth inning solo homer, his 12th of the year.
There really isn't much question right now as to whether or not Harper is still elite — as Phillies President Dave Dombrowski openly mused this offseason. He is.
After hitting nine homers over an eight-game stretch (highlighted by two two-run shots hit on Friday), the scorching hot slugger added an insurance RBI-double in Saturday's win. He went quietly in the finale with a 0-for-5 blanking, but he wasn't needed as the offense handled itself without him to complete the sweep.
Schwarber leads all of baseball with his 20 home runs, and his 36 RBI are in the top five. He's a one-man run-generating machine.
After Aaron Nola's stinker of a start Friday (more on that in a bit), the Phillies trailed 6-0, and eventually 8-3 in the sixth inning. A Schwarber homer in the seventh got things moving in the right direction, leading to a ninth-inning rally that helped the Phils close the gap the entire way with an improbable comeback.
In the top of that frame, the Phils loaded the bases against old friend Gregory Soto before an RBI-walk from Schwarber set up a two-run single off Harper's bat to tie things. Three runs followed in the 10th before Orion Kerkering shut the door to earn a save. It was the most impressive win of the season so far.
That win came in spite of yet another lackluster start from one-time rotation mainstay Nola, who couldn't get out of the fourth inning Friday. He allowed six runs on six hits and three walks.
Nola's season is puzzling because it hasn't been all bad. Two starts ago, the vet pitched six shutout innings in Miami. In his start prior to Sunday, he held the Rockies to three runs in a Phillies win. But his 5.91 ERA and 1.55 WHIP this season are unacceptable and his consistency has to be out there somewhere. Otherwise the Phils are looking at one of the worst contracts in baseball (he's owed $24.57 million every year through 2030).
Yes, the Pirates had a winning record before the series began but it was soft. The Phils have won six series in a row, mostly against bad teams. No one is really expecting the inexperienced Pirates to be a World Series contender. There could be some real contenders ahead over the next few weeks:
| Dates | Opponent | Record |
| May 18-20 | vs. Reds | 24-22 |
| May 22-24 | vs. Guardians | 25-22 |
| May 25-27 | @ Padres | 27-18 |
| May 29-31 | @Dodgers | 28-18 |
| June 2-4 | vs. Padres | 27-18 |
Will they stay above .500 as they enter June?
Turner has had a down season but his series against the Pirates made it clear he's coming around — especially in some clutch spots. After setting the table and scoring two runs in Game 1 of the series, Turner hit an RBI-double in Game 2. He also provided some big time defense with Sánchez in trouble in the ninth looking to secure the shutout.
The final out!
— MLB (@MLB) May 16, 2026
Cristopher Sánchez throws his second career shutout 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/VI92xiMCrn
Still sort of under the radar with the Phillies' superstars slugging like crazy of late, Marsh is in the top 5 in MLB in batting average as he continues to smack hits with impressive regularity. He had hits in all three games in this series and has only gone hitless twice since April 20.
The Phillies' assistant coach has already had a pretty good year — he was promoted from being a longtime third base coach to bench coach when Don Mattingly was promoted to manager a few weeks ago. But with Mattingly out on Saturday attending his son's graduation, Wathan got to play substitute manager as he watched Sánchez dazzle in Philly's no doubter 6-0 win.
"Managing's really easy when you have really good players and they play well," Wathan told reporters after the game.
Wathan has a perfect record as a big league manager.
This award is last on our list, but not least (it was just the last game of the series so we wrote it last). Wheeler looks every bit the ace again as he's back in midseason form following a late start to the season recovering from Thoracic Outlet surgery. In the finale, Wheeler went seven strong allowing just four hits and no runs while striking out eight.
The Phils offense did the rest in the second consecutive 6-0 win, as Bryson Stott was the star driving in three runs all by himself.
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