PHILADELPHIA -- Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly is OK that Zack Wheeler is upset with him for removing him from Wednesday night’s game against Pittsburgh, just one out from being in line to secure his ninth win of the season.
They hadn’t chatted yet on Thursday morning, but they will.
“I don’t think he wants to talk to me yet,” Mattingly said at Citizens Bank Park. “Maybe he’ll settle down. … In general, it really doesn't bother me at all that he's upset. I think the great ones never want to come out of a game, and he's no different. I mean, I had [Clayton] Kershaw out there [in Los Angeles], he did not want to come out of games.”
Mattingly removed Wheeler with two outs in the top of the fifth inning with the Phillies holding a five-run lead. Wheeler had retired the first two batters he faced, but he allowed three consecutive singles to extend his pitch count to 104. The hits weren’t rockets to the wall. Esmerlyn Valdez hit a bloop single to right at 72.6 mph, Ryan O’Hearn shot a ball off the mound into center field and Nick Gonzales hit a broken-bat bloop single to center at 63.4 mph.
Mattingly’s hook made it Wheeler’s shortest start since June 16, 2024, when he pitched 4 1/3 innings in Baltimore. It kept Wheeler’s record at 8-1.
“I was upset,” Wheeler said on Wednesday night.
About what?
“Getting taken out of the game,” he said. “I feel like I’ve earned that.”
Mattingly explained his decision.
“He’s at [104] in that inning,” he said. “[If] he has a 10-pitch at-bat, he’s at [114] in the fifth inning. This is a long-term kind of situation. I think you guys know our rotation is obviously a great rotation, but the depth of it is not just filled with four [Paul] Skenes down in the Minor Leagues ready to pop in and fill the spot. My job is to make sure that this guy stays available through the course of the season. We’ve got a long way to go. So I really don't mind guys being upset. That’s what the great ones do, but I still have to make decisions for the whole club.”
An argument can be made for both. Wheeler is one of baseball’s greatest pitchers. He is a potential Hall of Famer. So, he deserved the benefit of the doubt and the opportunity to get one more out. And while wins and losses might not matter as much today to front offices, managers, coaches and fans, ask almost every pitcher if they still value wins and they will say yes.
But it would be catastrophic for the Phillies to lose Wheeler because they overworked him midseason. And while no organization has anybody in the Minor Leagues that could replace somebody like Wheeler, the Phillies’ farm system is particularly weak from a starting pitching perspective.
“It used to be that you'd let that guy try to finish it,” Mattingly said. “And in a different time, you may be letting the guy throw 130, but that's not the time we're in. It's not the situation that we're in right now. … I've had to do it with Noles [Aaron Nola] a couple of times, where he's in that same spot.
"I feel like the best decision for the club is to make a move right there. I don't like doing that because I do want guys to get a win. In general, I don't ever want to take [Wheeler] out of the game. I don't ever want to take Sanchy [Cristopher Sánchez] out of the game, but I still have to make decisions based on the whole group.”
If Mattingly and Wheeler don’t talk before Thursday’s game, they will have plenty of time to talk before his next start next week.
“I want to talk to him,” Mattingly said. “He’s a lot bigger than me, but in general, yeah, I’m not afraid to talk to him. How I feel about it is how I feel about it. I want to know his feelings on it, and all that stuff, but I’m still making the decision based on the club and the team, and moving forward and where we want to go. So I don't mind him hearing my side of it. I don't mind hearing his side of it.”