{"id":122151,"date":"2026-05-18T15:42:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T19:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=122151"},"modified":"2026-05-18T15:42:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T19:42:54","slug":"phillies-pitcher-dazzling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2026\/05\/18\/phillies-pitcher-dazzling\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Pitcher Dazzling"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Philadelphia Phillies pitcher dazzling is Zack Wheeler as he excels in his return from injury. The team has gotten a boost since Wheeler returned to the Phillies rotation<\/a> on April 25. In his most recent outing Wheeler dominated against<\/a> the Pittsburgh Pirates while the Phillies offense scored five runs off of Paul Skenes. Wheeler went seven innings for the second time this year and had his first scoreless outing of the season. Additionally Wheeler matched a season high eight strikeouts. This outing is a continuation of positive performances for Wheeler. In his age-36 season and coming back from thoracic outlet syndrome what Wheeler is doing is impressive.<\/p>\n

Overall this season Wheeler has a 3-0 record and a 1.99 ERA and a 2.37 FIP in five major league starts. To add to that Wheeler has a 0.88 WHIP and a 4.29 K\/BB rate with a career best 0.28 HR\/9 allowed rate. Opposing batters have a .188 average and a .247 BABIP against Wheeler. For comparison Wheeler had a 0-1 record with a 5.85 ERA and a 4.45 FIP in his five minor league rehab outings. Wheeler also recorded a 1.20 WHIP and a 4.60 K\/BB rate with a 1.35 HR\/9 allowed rate. Opposing batters had a .257 average and a .333 BABIP against Wheeler in those appearances. Any concerns that were had about Wheeler after those rehab appearances have subsided.<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Phillies Pitcher Dazzling<\/h2>\n

Velocity Rebounding Compared To Minor League Rehab Starts<\/h3>\n

During his minor league rehab appearances Wheeler had some velocity concerns. Wheeler averaged 92.9 mph on his fastball in those outings which has rebounded to a 95.0 mph average since returning to the majors. During the 2025 major league season Wheeler averaged 96.1 mph on his fastball. Wheeler has seen his cutter velocity increase from a 88.3 mph average in the minors to a 91.1 mph average in the majors. Outside of the slider and to an extent his curveball the velocity averages Wheeler has in the majors this season are in line with his averages from the 2023 and 2024 seasons. That is a good sign for Wheeler as he continues to build up.<\/p>\n

Dynamic Duo At The Top Of The Starting Rotation<\/h3>\n

If one Phillies pitcher dazzling was not enough the Phillies also have Cristopher S\u00e1nchez performing at a top level. Even before Wheeler went on the injured list at the end of the 2025 season S\u00e1nchez had continued to ascend<\/a> as a top pitcher in baseball. Wheeler and S\u00e1nchez are the best one-two starting rotation duo in baseball at the moment. S\u00e1nchez had a 2.75 ERA along with a 1.24 WHIP leading the Phillies pitching staff in 14 regular season outings while Wheeler was out. During that span S\u00e1nchez recorded a 27.9% strikeout rate and a 5.1% walk rate. S\u00e1nchez had a 3.0 fWAR in that stretch and tied with Cam Schlittler for the best among qualified pitchers in that span.<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Wheeler Back In NL Cy Young Award Caliber Form<\/h3>\n

Among pitchers with at least 30 innings pitched this season entering play on May 18, Wheeler has the 10th best ERA and the seventh best FIP while also having the eighth best WHIP. Furthermore Wheeler has the seventh best HR\/9 allowed rate and the 10th lowest HR\/FB rate among that group. While a limited sample size Wheeler could have an underrated Cy Young Award case<\/a> as he had a few seasons ago. This Phillies pitcher dazzling has boosted the team across the board. The Phillies have a 16-5 record since Wheeler returned. Additionally Phillies starting pitchers have a 3.24 ERA, which ranks seventh best in that span, and a second best in the majors 3.26 FIP during that stretch.<\/p>\n

Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Philadelphia Phillies pitcher dazzling is Zack Wheeler as he excels in his return from injury. The team has gotten a boost since Wheeler returned to the Phillies rotation on April 25. In his most recent outing Wheeler dominated against the Pittsburgh Pirates while the Phillies offense scored five runs off of Paul Skenes. Wheeler […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4566,"featured_media":122160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1071,23],"tags":[28573,683],"class_list":["post-122151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","category-phillies","tag-cristopher-sanchez","tag-zack-wheeler"],"modified_by":"Ben Rosen, Staff Writer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122151"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122158,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122151\/revisions\/122158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}