Leahy Gets the Ball as Cards Try to Avoid Sweep in Philly
The Cardinal Chronicle
Leahy Gets the Ball as Cardinals Try to Avoid Sweep in Philadelphia
St. Louis, MO
By Ray Mileur
The Cardinals are one loss away from leaving Philadelphia with nothing but frustration.
After dropping the first two games of the series at Citizens Bank Park, St. Louis returns Sunday afternoon trying to avoid a sweep against a Phillies club that has looked every bit like a team building toward October.
First pitch is scheduled for 12:35 p.m. CT, with right-hander Kyle Leahy getting the ball for the Cardinals against Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sánchez.
The Cardinals enter at 66-65, while Philadelphia comes in at 72-58. The Phillies have won eight straight games, including back-to-back wins over St. Louis to open the weekend. The Cardinals, meanwhile, need a win Sunday just to avoid falling back to .500.
The rotation picture also got thinner before Sunday’s finale. Right-handers Hunter Dobbins and Andre Pallante have both been placed on the 15-day injured list, leaving the Cardinals with more questions about how they will cover innings in the days ahead. That makes Leahy’s start even more important. St. Louis does not just need a win to avoid the sweep; it needs length from one of the few healthy starters still holding the rotation together.
That is the part that stings.
Friday night was there to be won. The Cardinals had late offense, a lead in the 10th inning and a chance to steal the opener, but Alec Bohm delivered the walk-off two-run triple that gave Philadelphia a 7-6 win. It was the kind of loss that feels heavy because St. Louis did enough to put itself in position, but not enough to finish.
Saturday was worse.
The Phillies beat the Cardinals 12-3, and this time there was no late-inning heartbreak. Philadelphia jumped on Quinn Mathews early, built a 7-0 lead through three innings and never allowed St. Louis to make the game competitive.
Andrew Painter, who had struggled for much of his rookie season, gave Philadelphia a career-high seven innings. He allowed one run on five hits, struck out eight and did not walk a batter. Bryce Harper hit a three-run homer, Kyle Schwarber launched his major league-leading 38th home run, and former Cardinal Edmundo Sosa drove in two more runs against his old club.
For the Cardinals, there were only a few positives.
JJ Wetherholt hit his 17th home run of the season. Blaze Jordan doubled and scored. Alec Burleson drove in a run. Nathan Church tripled in the ninth and scored on a José Fermín groundout.
That was about it.
The Cardinals were outplayed early, outpitched throughout and never forced Philadelphia to sweat.
Now Leahy gets the job of stopping the weekend from becoming a sweep, while also giving the Cardinals badly needed stability after Dobbins and Pallante landed on the injured list.
Leahy enters at 10-4 with a 3.24 ERA and 111 strikeouts. He has been one of the steadier arms on a staff that has taken some hits recently, and the Cardinals need exactly that version of him Sunday. This is not a day for a short start, early traffic or another quick climb uphill.
The assignment is plain.
Throw strikes. Get early contact. Keep the ball in the yard. Do not give the Phillies extra baserunners in front of Schwarber, Harper and the middle of the order.
That is easier said than done against a lineup playing with this much confidence.
Philadelphia has hurt the Cardinals in several different ways this weekend. Bohm won Friday with one big swing. Sosa has been a problem. Schwarber continues to do damage. Harper changed Saturday’s game with one swing. Trea Turner, Luis Arraez, J.T. Realmuto, Brandon Marsh and the rest of the lineup give the Phillies enough length to punish mistakes even when the home runs are not coming.
The Cardinals cannot keep handing them stress-free innings.
Leahy does not have to be overpowering. He does have to control the game. If he can work ahead, keep the Phillies from stacking traffic and get the Cardinals into the middle innings with the game still manageable, St. Louis will have a chance.
But the offense has to show up earlier.
That is the other part of Sunday’s challenge.
The Cardinals face Sánchez, who enters at 16-4 with a 2.51 ERA and 187 strikeouts. He has been one of the better left-handed starters in the National League, and he is not the kind of pitcher a club wants to face while trying to avoid a sweep. He can miss bats, control the zone and make hitters look uncomfortable when they start chasing.
St. Louis has to be disciplined without being passive.
The Cardinals need to make Sánchez throw strikes, but they cannot let hittable pitches go by just because the matchup is difficult. They need traffic. They need to force him to work from the stretch. They need better at-bats with runners on base. Most of all, they need to put something on the board before the game starts to feel like Philadelphia’s day again.
That means Wetherholt setting the tone. It means Jordan Walker giving the lineup impact in the middle. It means Iván Herrera, Burleson, Joshua Báez, Masyn Winn, Church, Fermín, Blaze Jordan and the rest of the order have to make Sánchez work for every out.
The Cardinals cannot ask one or two swings to carry the entire afternoon.
They need innings.
They need pressure.
They need to make Philadelphia’s defense handle the baseball and force the Phillies’ bullpen into the game with something at stake.
The bigger picture is not hard to see.
The Cardinals are still trying to hang around the National League postseason picture, but weekends like this make the climb feel steeper. Philadelphia is one of the clubs St. Louis is trying to measure itself against, and so far, the Phillies have looked like the sharper, cleaner, more complete team.
That does not have to define the whole road trip.
But it will if the Cardinals let Sunday get away, too.
A win would not erase Friday’s missed chance or Saturday’s blowout. It would not fix the injuries, the rotation questions or the uneven offense. But it would stop the sweep, keep St. Louis above .500 and give the Cardinals something to take forward.
A loss sends them home back at even, swept by a team they are chasing, and with more questions than answers.
That is where the series stands.
Leahy gets the ball.
Sánchez stands in the way.
The Phillies are rolling.
The Cardinals need to stop the slide before it follows them out of Philadelphia.
Game Info
Matchup: St. Louis Cardinals at Philadelphia Phillies
When: Sunday, August 23, 2026
First Pitch: 12:35 p.m. CT / 1:35 p.m. ET
Where: Citizens Bank Park, Philadelphia
Probable Pitchers: RHP Kyle Leahy vs. LHP Cristopher Sánchez
Leahy: 10-4, 3.24 ERA, 111 SO
Sánchez: 16-4, 2.51 ERA, 187 SO
Records: Cardinals 66-65; Phillies 72-58
Broadcast: Cardinals.TV Presented by bet365 / NBC Sports Philadelphia
Radio: KMOX
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Photo Credit: Kyle Leahy, St. Louis Cardinals | MLB