Rob Thomson explained the difficult decision he has when it comes to selecting the Phillies' starting pitcher for Game of 2 of the NLDS at Citizens Bank Park on Sunday—Aaron Nola or Cristopher Sanchez.
"I'm not ready to declare it because we still don't know who we're playing," Thomson said over the phone during Thursday's 94WIP Red October Rally live at Chickie's & Pete's in South Philadelphia.
"There's positives or negatives, or whatever you want to call it, on both whether it is Sanchy or Nola going Game 2. But with Sanchy going Game 2 it splits up the righties and splits up the lefties. Sanchy's numbers at home are way different than they are on the road, a lot better. You know that Nola can go anywhere on the planet and he's going to be comfortable pitching no matter where he is. You've got your two experienced guys if you go Wheeler number one and Nola going number two and you're banking on those guys going deep in the games. So you have them back to back, you think you have a shot at getting a big lead and taking over a big series, but you never know. We're still working through it, there's positives and negatives to either way you want to go and there's arguments on both sides. So we'll see."
As Thomson mentioned, Sanchez is 7-3 with a 2.21 ERA at Citizens Bank Park this season versus 4-6 with a 5.02 ERA on the road.
The Phillies will play the winner of tonight's Wildcard round Game 3 between the Milwaukee Brewers and the New York Mets. Game 1 will be Saturday at 4:08pm and Game 2 will Sunday at 4:08pm.
You can hear the games live on 94.1 WIP-FM and the free Audacy app.