Phillies’ Zack Wheeler ready for his chance at a postseason rewrite, starting with Game 1 Tuesday

Wheeler remembers Game 6 of the 2022 World Series for what could have been. Eleven months later, he’s grateful for another shot at going all the way.

Zack Wheeler made 32 starts this season and posted a 3.61 ERA with 212 strikeouts in 192 innings.Read moreElizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer / Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer

by Scott Lauber

Published Oct. 2, 2023, 5:00 a.m. ET

Zack Wheeler thinks about it — a lot. He talks about it often. And he used it as fuel whenever the season felt too long and the days monotonous.

But rewatch it? No, he won’t do that.

“Nah,” the Phillies ace said, smiling. “What’s done is done.”

Sure, but not really. Because as long as he pitches, and probably well after he’s finished, Wheeler will remember Game 6 of the 2022 World Series, that Saturday night in Houston sticking like a Post-it note on his gilded right arm as a reminder of what was and what could’ve been.

And now, 11 months later, Wheeler finally has a chance to set it right. After a regular season that merited Cy Young Award consideration, he will start Tuesday against the upstart Miami Marlins in the opener of a best-of-three wild-card series, the first step toward what Phillies players and team officials believe will be the third World Series triumph in their 141-year history.

It’s the only outcome that would make Wheeler forget, even a little bit.

”That’s what you grow up playing baseball for, to pitch in the playoffs,” he said. “Getting that first game is special. It means a lot to me. We’ll be ready to go.”

Wheeler, 33, has been ready for, oh, about 331 days — and he was definitely counting.

After being lifted from Game 6 with one out and two on in the sixth inning and a 1-0 lead and watching José Alvarado allow a three-run homer to the Astros’ Yordan Alvarez, Wheeler went home to Georgia. He rested his arm and adhered to Phillies head athletic trainer Paul Buchheit’s plan to keep him healthy after working an extra month and pitching 35⅔ high-stress innings in the postseason.

It worked. Wheeler made 32 starts and posted a 3.61 ERA in 192 innings. He had 212 strikeouts, 39 walks, and led all pitchers in the Fangraphs version of wins above replacement (6.0).

The Phillies have come to expect such excellence. They signed Wheeler to a five-year, $118 million contract in the 2019-20 offseason, and since then, he has a 3.06 ERA in 101 starts. Over the last four seasons, he leads all pitchers in WAR (19.6) and ranks fourth in innings (629⅓) and eighth in strikeouts (675).

Good luck finding a better free-agent signing in Phillies history.

”He’s my favorite guy in the league to watch pitch,” Aaron Nola said. “He’s really the first guy I ever played with that threw 98, 99 a lot, but he commanded that. And he knows how to pitch. You see a lot of guys that throw that hard and just throw. He knows how to move the ball around.”

But nobody, not even Wheeler, knew what to expect last October. He missed 31 days, or roughly five starts, down the stretch last season with inflammation in his forearm. He threw 58, 62, and 77 pitches in his last three regular-season starts.

Layered on top of that, neither Wheeler nor Nola had pitched in the postseason before. Wheeler heard about the heightened intensity. He even witnessed it in 2015, when the Mets reached the World Series while he was injured, but didn’t experience it firsthand.

Wheeler dazzled for 6⅓ scoreless innings in Game 1 of the wild-card round in St. Louis. He gave up one hit in seven scoreless innings to begin the NL Championship Series in San Diego and started the pennant-clinching Game 5 against the Padres at home.

But he gave up five runs in five innings in Game 2 of the World Series and dealt with what the Phillies vaguely characterized as arm fatigue. By the time Game 6 came around, the Phillies gave Wheeler six days’ rest and hoped for the best.

”Yeah, we didn’t really know,” pitching coach Caleb Cotham recalled. “I know he’s a competitor. I know he’s going to leave it all out there. I thought definitely anything was possible. And it didn’t surprise me, honestly.”

Wheeler had “lightning bolts coming out of his hands,” as catcher J.T. Realmuto described it later. He threw 70 pitches, the last a 96 mph sinker that Jeremy Peña grounded up the middle for a hit. Wheeler said he was “caught off guard” when manager Rob Thomson took him out.

Thomson and Wheeler didn’t litigate the decision in the offseason. Neither deemed it necessary. Wheeler brings it up every so often with Cotham, mostly to needle him.

”I’ll give Caleb some crap sometimes,” Wheeler said. “I know it probably wasn’t even his call.”

Said Cotham: “I’ve turned the page. It was really tough to turn the page. You try to make good decisions to win the game. I’ve told him from the start, it’s never a comment on the starter. It’s always a comment on also loving the relievers. That one didn’t work out. It still stinks, you know? A guy that’s pitching as well as he was and that happened.”

Maybe there are lessons to learn. Not so much about lengthening the postseason rope for ace pitchers, because modern managers almost reflexively turn to the bullpen earlier than normal when the stakes are highest.

But in plowing through the postseason for the first time in a decadelong major-league career and posting a 2.78 ERA in six starts, Wheeler maintains that he learned what it takes to be effective in October.

”Everything matters,” he said. “Every out counts. Growing up watching it, you think you know. But going through it, you come to learn that every out, every pitch literally matters. Baseball’s a great sport when it gets to October. That’s when you’ve got to turn it on.”

Eleven months passed in a flash, said Wheeler, propelled forward by the memory of an abrupt end to a 70-pitch gem in the game of his life.

Now, he gets a chance at a rewrite.

”I felt like I could’ve gone 100 pitches that night,” he said. “It still feels a little fresh. But we’re making a new path this year, and hopefully can just do a little better.”