ANAHEIM -- After another rough start in Seattle on Monday, Zack Wheeler said he and the Phillies were going to sit down and look at “everything,” in an effort to get to the bottom of it.
They found something.
“My glove was down two more inches than it has been all year last start, and it's been trending that way all season,” Wheeler said. “They show you this graph, and it’s been down -- so what do we do? Just bring the front arm up a little bit and go from there.”
It may sound simple, but the slightest difference can throw off the entire delivery.
“I’ve got to sync everything else up off of that,” Wheeler said. “But as long as I’m getting that front arm up, then not kind of over-rotating, shooting toward the third-base on-deck circle. Obviously, you want to be shooting toward the plate.”
Now, Wheeler still wasn’t quite the Zack Wheeler of old in Sunday afternoon’s 5-2 victory over the Angels -- but he certainly took a step in the right direction at Angel Stadium.
Wheeler limited the Angels to just one run, while completing six innings for the first time since July 21. He earned his first win since July 12, snapping a streak of seven consecutive starts without a victory -- his longest as a Phillie.
Wheeler did issue three more walks, including two of his final three hitters, but he buckled down to finish off the sixth with his sixth strikeout of the game.
“Still not out of it,” Wheeler said. "Just kind of beared down between starts to figure out what's going on, and feel like we kind of figured it out."
It looked early on as if Wheeler -- who entered with a 9.27 ERA over his past five full starts -- was once again in for a long afternoon. He issued a leadoff walk to Wade Meckler, then hit Mike Trout with a sinker that got away from him. Vaughn Grissom then singled to load the bases with nobody out, but Wheeler got a double play and a strikeout to hold the Halos to a single run.
Wheeler settled in to retire 14 of the next 17 batters -- while walking none of them -- until hitting a bit of a wall in the sixth. After getting two quick outs to begin the frame, Wheeler walked 23-year-old Christian Moore, who entered the day with a 34% strikeout rate in his young career.
Wheeler then issued a four-pitch walk to Josh Lowe that prompted a visit from pitching coach Caleb Cotham. Despite Wheeler's pitch count climbing, interim manager Don Mattingly gave the veteran every opportunity to end his outing on a high note.
“It looked like he was kind of getting [to] the end,” Mattingly said. “But I felt like he deserved that shot right there.”
Wheeler rewarded his skipper's trust.
He fell behind the next batter 3-1 while extending his streak to 13 consecutive pitches outside the zone (including one swinging strike and one foul ball). He then pounded the zone with three straight breaking balls, the last of which was a rare curveball -- Wheeler’s least-used pitch -- that Jose Siri whiffed at for strike three.
It ultimately took 108 pitches, but six innings of one-run ball is an encouraging sign from Wheeler.
“He's close, he's close,” said catcher J.T. Realmuto, who homered while starting a day game after a 10-inning game the night before. “… I know he's working hard on it. We have all the faith in the world that he's going to be the guy he has been for us in years past.”
Despite escaping the late jam, Wheeler walked off the mound in danger of extending his winless streak to eight consecutive starts. Moments later, though, Edmundo Sosa -- the hero from Friday night -- led off the top of the seventh with a home run to put Wheeler in line for the win.
“He's one of our aces, and he's one of the leaders in this clubhouse,” Sosa said via interpreter Diego D’Aniello. “We just saw the great pitcher that he is today. He was himself tonight, and let's just hope that he can build off of this and just keep it going.”
The Phillies certainly need him to.
With their 13th win in their past 15 games, the Phillies (77-60) moved within a half-game of the Cubs (77-59) for the top NL Wild Card spot. They remain five games behind the Braves (82-55) in the National League East.
So with less than a month left in the regular season, where does Wheeler rank on the list of things the Phillies need to get right down the stretch?
“I'd say pretty high,” Mattingly said. “Because you know what he can be and what he can do. This is a good start to heading that direction.”