It took Philadelphia Phillies ace Zack Wheeler until his fifth start of the season to get his first victory of the season. Given how well Wheeler pitched across the first four, you can start to understand why pitcher wins have been devalued as a metric around the sport.
Nonetheless, for as good as Wheeler was over his first four starts, he found another level against the lowly Chicago White Sox Saturday evening. A night after Spencer Turnbull carried a no-hitter into the seventh inning, Wheeler didn’t give up a hit until his 106th and final pitch of the night, a seeing-eye single off the bat of White Sox catcher Korey Lee with one out in the eighth inning that made it just by Bryce Harper’s outstretched glove at first base.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson said postgame that he told Wheeler after the seventh inning that he would let him throw up to 120 pitches. Ultimately, it proved to be a moot point. In his quest to get quick outs in the eighth inning, Wheeler finally gave up a hit. But he appeared to be understanding of why Thomson would have a limit for him, even if he reached it without having allowed a hit yet.
“I mean, that’s good to me. It’s a long season. I always say that when this type of stuff happens,” Wheeler said postgame.
“You want to be good for the long run,” Wheeler continued. “I mean, no-hitters are cool, but you gotta be safe with them too.”
Even if Wheeler is still searching for his first career no-hitter, he’s made himself the very-early favorite for the NL Cy Young Award. Across his first five starts of the season, he has a 2.30 ERA. Wheeler’s 1.1 WAR is tied with Kutter Crawford of the Boston Red Sox for the top mark among all starting pitchers in the sport. He’s logged the most innings of any pitcher so far at 31 1/3 innings.
It’s at the point where every time Wheeler takes the mound at Citizens Bank Park, it’s almost like an event. Sure, he didn’t throw a no-hitter Saturday night, but it would hardly be surprising if he makes another run at one before 2024 is out.
“He’s able to do that each and every outing, each and every night for us,” Trea Turner said of Wheeler’s dominant outing Saturday. “So, glad we finally got him a win, I think that’s the first one. So, we gave him some run support, but [it was] just vintage Zack, pounding the zone. He had command of all his pitches. And he’s really tough to hit when he’s mixing them all.”
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