Tag: Zack Wheeler

The plastic sheets have been rolled up above the lockers in the Phillies’ clubhouse since Wednesday.

It’s like they’re part of the decor.

But they’ll stay there for one more day. Because a team that extends its season after the endurance test of 162 games in 185 days deserves to let loose. A playoff spot, no matter how it’s won, is worth celebrating.

And somehow, someway the Phillies can still make the playoffs. Even after this Saturday Night Massacre — a 12-1 humiliation, in the rain, against the 98-win Rays — near the end of a week from hell in which a $320 million roster has gotten plenty of boos but not a drop of booze.

Heck, they can make it even if they lose again Sunday.

And wouldn’t that be fitting?

“We’ll see,” said interim manager Don Mattingly, who appears more downcast by the day.

OK, let’s get this out of the way: The Phillies will make the playoffs if they snap a four-game losing skid in the regular-season finale … with Zack Wheeler starting on regular rest … and Jesús Luzardo expected to be back from the injured list and available out of the bullpen.

“To me, it just comes down to our offense,” said J.T. Realmuto, hitless in 34 at-bats, four shy of matching an unwanted franchise mark. “We need to be able to score.”

Easy enough, right? Until Rays second baseman Richie Palacious bobbled a grounder in the seventh inning, the Phillies hadn’t scored in 21 innings, a season-high. They have scored three runs or less in 10 of the last 13 games.

So, what if the bats don’t thaw against Rays starter Nick Martinez, a 15-game winner with a 2.94 ERA? Well, the Phillies can back into the playoffs — can’t you just hear the beep, beep, beep? — if the Diamondbacks lose in San Diego.

But you have to wonder about the collective psyche of a team that has made this all much harder than it ever needed to be.

“Two weeks ago,” Realmuto said, “I wouldn’t have guessed that we’d be in this situation.”

Indeed, when the month began, the Phillies led the Diamondbacks by 6½ games with 23 remaining. At the start of this week, the lead was four games with six to play. The Phillies’ playoff odds were 99.1%, according to Fangraphs.

No wonder Mattingly has looked shaken after the last few games. And although Kyle Schwarber, the Phillies’ de facto captain, often notes in times of trouble that the core of the roster has been through almost everything together over the last five seasons, they haven’t experienced anything like this.

“Obviously we put ourselves in a tough situation where we have to win [Sunday’s] game to keep our season alive, most likely,” Realmuto said. “It’s definitely frustrating. But we have hope in this group, and we have a lot of confidence here that we can get it going.”

There isn’t much else to say. And there weren’t many players left in the clubhouse to say it after getting throttled by the Rays.

Aaron Nola was made to start the game on two days’ rest because the fourth-largest payroll in the sport somehow doesn’t include a No. 6 starter. He faced seven batters, got three outs, and gave up three runs on four extra-base hits, including a two-run homer to Rays star Junior Caminero.

“I was actually really proud of him,” Mattingly said. “Taking the ball there on two days’ [rest], kind of just gutting it out.”

But Nola shouldn’t have been in that position any more than the Phillies should be in their overall predicament. In that way, he was a symbol of everything that has gone awry.

So, they turn their lonely eyes to Wheeler, less a stopper than firewall against missing the playoffs for the first time since 2021. The Phillies are 19-8 in his starts.

“We’re always confident when that guy’s on the mound,” Realmuto said.

Never mind that the Phillies will have to burn Wheeler in Game 162 instead of saving him for Tuesday night in Atlanta, when he would’ve been lined up to start Game 1 of a best-of-three wildcard miniseries.

But the only thing more unexpected than the way things have unfolded is that the Phillies might actually live to tell about it. All of it.

• The 9-19 start that resulted in the firing of manager Rob Thomson and the initial revival under Mattingly.
• A skid after the All-Star break and a surge that began in an Iowa cornfield.
• The 8-14 finish that put them on the brink of collapse.

“I didn’t really picture this, like having to do this,” Mattingly said. “But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do if that’s what it takes for us to get in. And then it’s all square. It’s all even.”

Mattingly paused.

“It’s been a year,” he said.

And it comes down to one day.

NEW YORK — Zack Wheeler threw “about three strikes in the bullpen,” by his best recollection. But that wasn’t why he slowed his walk across the outfield before a May 12 start in Boston.

“Man,” he exhaled to catcher/confidant J.T. Realmuto, “this is cool.”

Wheeler doesn’t usually do sentimental. Not publicly, at least. He’s 36, with gray wisps in his beard befitting a father of four small children. He’s still the Phillies’ ace, too, and baseball’s highest-paid pitcher (non-Shohei Ohtani division) at $42 million per year.

And he has seen it all in 14 years in the majors.

Wheeler would rather not waste time, then, on things that don’t matter or aren’t within his control. No-nonsense to his core (save for the occasional cameo on his wife’s TikToks), you have a better chance of getting the password to his email than getting him to go deep on overcoming venous thoracic outlet syndrome, the scary-sounding, career-threatening condition that befell him 13 months ago.

So, why the pause for reflection four months ago on the grass in Fenway Park? It sure seemed like a break from his typical tunnel vision to appreciate something that was nearly taken away.

“Part of that’s me probably winding down my career,” Wheeler said the other day after running sprints in the outfield here. “I’ve only got one more year on this contract. I don’t know if I’m going to play after that. But just going into those stadiums that maybe I won’t go back to — Anaheim, Detroit, Boston — we’re not going to play those teams there next year. So, kind of just soaking that in and enjoying it a little bit more this year than most years.”

Wait, let’s pause. When Wheeler signed an extension in March 2024, he initially wanted only a two-year deal. The Phillies talked him into three, for a total of $126 million. And at a news conference in Clearwater, Fla., he hinted it might be his last contract.

“I don’t want to play until I’m ‘old, old,’” he said then.

OK, sure. But did anyone really believe him? Wheeler was at the peak of his powers, healthier and better in the first half of his 30s with the Phillies than in his late 20s with the Mets. Besides, 40 is the new 30 in pro sports.

And here’s Wheeler now, pitching as well as ever — 2.99 ERA and 177 strikeouts in 150⅓ innings — even after a procedure last Sept. 23 in which surgeons removed his top rib to relieve a compressed vein.

Surely, he won’t walk away after only one more season. Will he?

“Honestly, I mean, it’s just still up in the air,” Wheeler said. “I think a lot of things have to kind of play out for me just to be able to see.”

Presumably, that includes the outcome of another Red October.

The Phillies are closing in on a fifth consecutive playoff appearance, and their chances of making a deep run hinge on the starters, notably Wheeler, Cristopher Sánchez, and Jesús Luzardo, if he’s able to overcome an inflamed left shoulder. Aaron Nola, Wheeler’s close friend and longtime running mate atop the rotation, can help, too, if he continues his second-half revival.

But there’s also baseball’s looming labor fight over a salary cap. With the collective bargaining agreement set to expire Dec. 1, the owners almost certainly will lock out the players.

What if an agreement isn’t reached in time for a 162-game season in 2027? How would that affect Wheeler’s plans?

“I don’t know,” he said, smiling. “I think it’s just going to be [a decision] at that point in time, whether it’s this or that, honestly.”

Fair enough. Say this, though: A year ago, even some Phillies officials wondered if Wheeler’s retirement, whenever it happens, might not be entirely on his own terms. Wheeler insists he never had a doubt.

‘To be expected’

As Wheeler comes up on one year since his surgery, it was fitting that he pitched this week in Washington, where his injury odyssey began.

Wheeler allowed two runs in five innings on Aug. 15, 2025, in Nationals Park and felt fine after coming out of the game. But when he developed a bubble in his armpit that looked like a lymph node, head athletic trainer Paul Buchheit recommended that they get it checked by the Nationals’ team physicians.

It turned out to be a blood clot.

Wheeler returned to Philadelphia for a venogram, a test to detect blood flow. The conclusion: The clot was caused by a vein that got compressed between the rib cage and collarbone.

One month after the clot was removed, Wheeler had a second procedure to relieve the vein. Then came the hard part: weeks of physical therapy and rehab, including a strict diet, not easy for an unabashed fast-food and junk-food lover.

It took time for Wheeler to put back the weight. He left spring training at about 195 pounds, roughly 10 pounds less than normal.

And yet, after all that, Wheeler shut out the Nationals on four hits in seven innings Wednesday night in Washington. Among 52 pitchers with a minimum of 150 innings entering the weekend, Wheeler was 14th in ERA and tied for 10th in walks/hits per inning (1.06).

“He’s made it look very easy,” pitching coach Caleb Cotham said of Wheeler’s comeback. “And it’s not.”

If someone had told Wheeler, as he left the hospital last September, that he’d be pitching at this level a year later, what would he have said?

“To be expected,” Wheeler said. “When you have surgery, or anything along those lines, you just have to stay positive and keep a strong mindset, you know? You believe that you’re going to come back and be the same guy, if not better, because you’ve had more time to strengthen and fine-tune everything.

“For me, it was just, come back, hit the ground running, and just be the same guy as I was, if not better.”

It did take time for Wheeler to regain the pre-surgery zip on his fastball. Even now, it isn’t completely back. He averaged 96.5 mph in July 2025, according to Statcast; he’s averaging 95.5 mph so far this month.

But Wheeler leans on his secondary pitches more now. His splitter, in particular, is “as good as it’s ever been,” Cotham said. Wheeler has thrown it 15.7% of the time, according to Statcast, and held opponents to a .182 average and .303 slugging.

If anything, Wheeler said the most unexpected part of the season was the depth of a six-start struggle after the All-Star break in which he posted an 8.51 ERA, bottoming out with an eight-run, five-walk, four-homer dud in Seattle on Aug. 24.

The root of the problem was a glitch in his mechanics. Wheeler dropped his glove, causing him to over-rotate and follow through too far to the third-base side. He fixed the issue and has allowed three runs in his last 26 innings.

“I feel like, since I’ve been [with the Phillies], I haven’t had more than two, maybe three starts in a row where it’s kind of gone bad,” Wheeler said. “I think I probably thought I was going to get out of it a little quicker than I did. And I didn’t. So, maybe I should have checked in a little bit earlier.”

It probably cost him a chance for his elusive Cy Young Award, although Brewers sensation Jacob Misiorowski probably wrapped that up months ago. But there’s little doubt Wheeler will be the Comeback Player of the Year.

‘This is where you want to be’

Eleven days after the removal of his rib, Wheeler was introduced with his teammates before Game 1 of the divisional round against the Dodgers.

It was a helpless feeling.

“Yeah, it was tough,” he said. “Maybe if it was like June or May, I would have been like, ‘All right.’ But being that close to the finish line and the playoffs where, that’s your goal every year is to make the playoffs and see what happens. It was tough.

“But what are you going to do? I’m that type of person where, stuff’s going to happen in your life. Everyday stuff, normal person stuff, baseball-wise stuff, and sometimes you just can’t help. Injuries happen. Car wrecks happen. Stuff happens in life. You just have to learn how to deal with it and figure stuff out.”

It helped that Wheeler overcame injuries early in his career.

Drafted in the first round (sixth overall) by the Giants in 2009, traded to the Mets in a one-for-one deal for Carlos Beltrán, and hailed as a top prospect, he missed 2½ seasons after Tommy John elbow surgery and multiple setbacks during the recovery.

By comparison, coming back from thoracic outlet syndrome was straightforward.

“That was my first injury where I was missing time at any level, even high school, so I was honestly just nervous that I wouldn’t get back,” Wheeler said. “I was unsure, just hoping for the best. But this far into my career, at the level that I’ve been pitching at, I expect to be there and want to be there.”

A year later, it’s like Wheeler was never gone.

“This time of the season, it’s cool, it’s special,” Wheeler said. “This is where you want to be, and these games really, really matter. It’s fun competing in these types of games, these atmospheres, and getting that close to the finish line. You’ve got to really bear down, and I think everybody knows that.”