SEATTLE \u2014 This is not the Zack Wheeler the Phillies are used to seeing.<\/p>\n
And for a team trying to fight its way to a fifth straight postseason trip, this is not what they need right now.<\/p>\n
That stood out Monday night at T-Mobile Park, where Philadelphia\u2019s nine-game winning streak ended in a 9-2 loss to the Mariners.<\/p>\n
Wheeler allowed five runs in the first inning. His command drifted. His misses were big. When he did come into the zone, too many pitches caught too much of the plate.<\/p>\n
He frankly did not look like himself.<\/p>\n
“Uncharacteristic,” Don Mattingly said.<\/p>\n
After the Phillies manufactured a run on Alec Bohm\u2019s run-scoring forceout in the top of the first, Wheeler walked Seattle leadoff man Randy Arozarena and allowed a single to Dominic Canzone.<\/p>\n
He quickly got Julio Rodr\u00edguez into an 0-2 count, but left a splitter, one of his better offerings lately, over the middle of the plate. Wheeler seemed to know it right away as the ball sailed over the left-field wall.<\/p>\n
In a blink, the Mariners had a 3-1 lead.<\/p>\n
And one of the worst offenses in baseball lately kept going.<\/p>\n
Josh Naylor was thrown out by Bryce Harper trying to stretch a single into a double, but Wheeler walked Taylor Ward and found himself in trouble again. Cal Raleigh, who entered the night batting .159, got a fastball up and in and drove it into the right-field seats.<\/p>\n
5-1, Mariners.<\/p>\n
Twenty-four pitches in, Philadelphia\u2019s co-ace had already put the Phillies in a deep hole.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommand was probably the biggest thing,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cHis stuff still seems good. Just command. It puts us in trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wheeler settled down in the second, but loaded the bases in the third before another run scored on a wild pitch. He pitched in and out of trouble in the fourth, and with 94 pitches and seemingly in more of a rhythm, Mattingly sent him back out for the fifth.<\/p>\n
Seattle kept slugging.<\/p>\n
Raleigh hit his second homer of the night before adding a third later on against Alex McFarlane. Wheeler stayed in after Raleigh\u2019s second homer and later allowed another, this one to Cole Young.<\/p>\n
The decision to send him back out came down to need and trust.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted to go back out,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cI kind of wanted him to go back out. We were going to keep it short. We weren\u2019t going to let him go far. At that point, we\u2019re down 6-2 … so I kind of really needed that inning, but didn\u2019t get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
“He just hasn’t been able to make that pitch to get out of innings as much as anything that we’ve seen lately.”<\/p>\n
The final line was jarring: four-plus innings, eight runs, four homers and five walks. It marked the first start in Phillies history in which a pitcher allowed at least four home runs and walked five batters. The eight runs tied Wheeler\u2019s career high.<\/p>\n
Wheeler did not search for excuses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve just been really struggling the past few,\u201d Wheeler said. \u201cThrowing strikes, quality strikes with the fastball right now, hasn\u2019t been fully consistent. Just got to get ahead of guys and get into counts where I want to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
The walks have become the loudest part of the skid.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really frustrating,\u201d Wheeler said. \u201cLeadoff the game, walking guys, and then it tumbles into a big inning for them. I hate walking guys. I used to walk guys and get bit, and I kind of got away from that. Now, this little stretch, I\u2019ve been walking guys. It\u2019s really frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
J.T. Realmuto has caught Wheeler through dominant stretches and off nights. This one looked different mostly because of where the misses were.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig misses, and then more pitches in the heart of the plate,\u201d Realmuto said. \u201cAs a hitter, it just makes the ball look a little bigger when your misses are big, and then when you do throw it in the zone, it\u2019s covering a little more plate than usual.\u201d<\/p>\n
That has become the concern.<\/p>\n
Wheeler, 36, underwent thoracic outlet surgery last year and raised the bar quickly after his April return. He posted a 2.16 ERA over his first 16 starts, even pitching himself into the National League Cy Young conversation.<\/p>\n
That makes the recent stretch feel even more jarring.<\/p>\n
He has now allowed four or more runs in four of his last six starts. For a pitcher who has been one of baseball\u2019s most reliable arms for years, each ineffective outing lands differently.<\/p>\n
But Wheeler and the Phillies pushed back on the idea that this is about health or endurance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel perfectly fine,\u201d Wheeler said. \u201cHealthy, strong. Everything\u2019s there. Just got to zone back in and figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mattingly said the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s going to be fine,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cI\u2019m not worried about that part of it. If he\u2019s not walking people, he\u2019s not throwing as many pitches, he\u2019s going deeper.\u201d<\/p>\n
So the focus shifts back to command, execution and whether anything else is giving hitters an edge.<\/p>\n
Wheeler said the Mariners took enough good swings that he will look into more than one area.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this point, you\u2019ve got to check off all the boxes,\u201d Wheeler said. \u201cWe\u2019ll sit down tomorrow and kind of dig in and see what\u2019s really going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Realmuto said the Phillies will review the possibility of tipping, though nothing stood out in real time.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just going to look into the tipping stuff because they took some pretty good swings on some offspeed pitches today that aren\u2019t usual,\u201d Realmuto said. \u201cBut nothing glaring that we noticed in game. For me, it\u2019s really just command. The stuff still feels sharp. It\u2019s coming out of his hand good.\u201d<\/p>\n
That is what makes the stretch complicated.<\/p>\n
The Phillies do not sound alarmed about his body. But the results have not matched the pitcher they are used to handing the ball every fifth day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a while,\u201d Wheeler said. \u201cI haven\u2019t had a stretch like this in a while. That\u2019s why I\u2019m so frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wheeler issued five free passes Monday and has now walked 15 batters over his last four starts, his most in a four-start span since late April to mid-May of 2014.<\/p>\n
The Phillies did not have Wheeler last October. Their clearest path to a 2022-like pennant run this year involves leaning heavily on their top three starters. That is what makes this stretch so important.<\/p>\n
Cristopher S\u00e1nchez has not been quite his top-flight self lately, posting a 3.84 ERA and 1.37 WHIP over his last 13 starts. Like S\u00e1nchez, Jes\u00fas Luzardo allowed four runs in his most recent outing. But in those games, the Phillies\u2019 offense answered back and found a way to win.<\/p>\n
That did not happen Monday.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia scored in each of the first two innings against Mariners right-hander Logan Gilbert, but had no real answer after that.<\/p>\n
Mattingly is not treating Wheeler like a lost pitcher.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime guys struggle, you\u2019re concerned about it, you keep working, you get better,\u201d Mattingly said. \u201cBut you\u2019re not like, \u2018Oh, this guy\u2019s lost it. He\u2019s never going to be good again.\u2019 I don\u2019t worry about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Phillies will send Aaron Nola to the mound Tuesday. Nola has surged lately, carrying a 5-9 record and 5.12 ERA into a matchup with George Kirby, who is 8-10 with a 4.18 ERA and has allowed 11 earned runs over his last two starts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEATTLE \u2014 This is not the Zack Wheeler the Phillies are used to seeing. And for a team…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1022499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[1266,64094,35360,62,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-1022795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-phillies-analysis","tag-phillies-news","tag-sports","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117155290529044634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1022795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1022499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1022795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1022795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1022795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}