At long last, Zack Wheeler will pitch in Williamsport as the Phillies face the Nationals

WASHINGTON — Growing up in suburban Atlanta, Zack Wheeler took after his two older brothers and played Little League. Their father, Barry, coached. And the objective never changed.

“Our goal,” Wheeler said Saturday, “was to make it there [to the Little League World Series]. Never made it.”

Better late than never, then, Wheeler will pitch in Williamsport.

By day Sunday, the Phillies and Nationals will visit with the Little League World Series teams. By night, they will play the sixth annual MLB Little League Classic, the finale of a three-game series that began Friday night in Washington.

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The Phillies were there five years ago to face the Mets. Wheeler, pitching for New York at the time, missed starting that game by one day. He would’ve missed it again, but lefty Ranger Suárez sprained his hamstring and went on the injured list, pushing up Wheeler to start on regular rest against the Nationals.

“It’ll be pretty cool to live out a childhood dream,” he said.

Wheeler is having another solid season, better than his numbers suggest. In 24 starts, he has a 3.63 ERA but a 3.08 FIP, a metric that measures a pitcher’s effectiveness based on outcomes within his control (walks, homers, hit by pitches, and strikeouts).

Since the All-Star break, Wheeler has a 2.50 ERA, 41 strikeouts, and only seven walks in 39⅔ innings. He has completed at least six innings in seven consecutive starts and 17 of his last 22.

And Wheeler has gone about it in different ways. Sometimes, he has overpowered hitters with his fastball, an approach that worked for him earlier in his career. Other times, he has used his slider or sweeper, a variation of the slider that he incorporated before the season.

“The 2½ years I’ve been here, when the velo has been just a little lower, his ability to make pitches, it’s as good as I’ve ever seen,” pitching coach Caleb Cotham said. “The days when he can’t just blow it by guys, he’s making a lot of good pitches. The quality of his offspeed is as good as I’ve seen it.

“It’s thinking about how to pair pitches. Hitters are getting a little better at handling fastballs up. You’ve got to have options now. I think the bigger slider fills a gap for him. Obviously more velo definitely helps him, and when he has velo, it’s a really fun day. But his ability to pitch, to me, has been elevated this year.”

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It’s all part of the 33-year-old Wheeler’s pitching evolution.

“Everything has gotten better as I’ve gotten older,” said Wheeler, who credits Cotham for turning him into a more complete pitcher. “I think with the offspeed getting better it’s going to be more consistent, right? It’ll be more for a strike or look more like a strike because it’s better. It’s tighter, all that type of stuff.”

Wheeler will bring it all to Williamsport, where he plans to mingle with the kids at Lamade Stadium before preparing to face the Nationals across the Susquehanna River and a few miles away at Bowman Field.

His enduring memory from the 2018 experience: the size of the Little League complex.

“We drove up on the bus right there behind the outfield fence, the kids were playing, and I didn’t even know there were two fields there,” Wheeler said. “That was cool. And then I got to see the hill that everybody slides down. It was really cool to see it in person.

“It’ll be fun to do it again. I’ll definitely enjoy it.”