Zack Wheeler dominates the Nationals as the Phillies win for the eighth time in nine games

Matt Klentak provoked a few snickers in National League East cities in December when he proudly declared that $118 million free-agent addition Zack Wheeler would join Aaron Nola atop the Phillies’ starting rotation to form “as good a twosome as you’ll find in the league.”

Well, the general manager could submit the last two games as Exhibits A and B to prove his point.

One night after Nola outpitched Patrick Corbin and blanked the Washington Nationals for eight innings, Wheeler upstaged Max Scherzer with 6⅔ scoreless innings in a 3-0 whitewashing of the World Series champions at Citizens Bank Park.

It marked the Phillies’ first back-to-back shutouts since a pair of 3-0 wins over Nationals on April 27-28, 2016, with Jeremy Hellickson and Nola on the mound. More importantly, Tuesday night marked the Phillies’ eighth victory in nine games and put them in second place, two games behind the division-leading Atlanta Braves.

“Having faced Noles and having played with Zack on two different teams now, you know how dynamic they are,” said super-sub Neil Walker, who delivered the big hit with a broken-bat two-run single in the fourth inning. “To see what they’ve done so far is not surprising.”

The Nationals 1-2 punch of Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg vanished when the latter went down with carpal tunnel syndrome. The New York Mets lost Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom’s sidekick, to elbow surgery. The Atlanta Braves’ rotation has been decimated by injuries.

But even if those teams were at full strength, Nola and Wheeler — with their 2.45 and 2.20 ERAs, respectively, through 14 starts — have proven to be a formidable duo. The Phillies are 9-5 when their co-aces pitch, and they’re lined up to start 10 of the final 28 games.

Surely manager Joe Girardi must dream of starting them in the first two games of a best-of-three first-round playoff series.

“I’m not even gonna let you ask the question,” Girardi said with a laugh. “It’s great to have a combination like that. I think every manager wants combinations like that. These guys have been really impressive.”

For Wheeler, it was a continuation of the way he has pitched since the season began. He leaned on his blazing fastball, which touched 98 m.p.h. and checked in at an average of 96.9. But he also mixed in a nasty slider and a few curveballs to generate 18 swings and misses on 109 pitches.

Wheeler lowered his ERA to 2.20 and raised his record to 4-0. He’s the first Phillies pitcher to allow three runs or less in his first seven starts for the team since Fernando Valenzuela in 1994.

For a more recent comparison, consider Cliff Lee, who posted a 2.81 ERA, 47 strikeouts and six walks in 48 innings over his first seven starts after being acquired in a trade-deadline deal in 2009.

Wheeler has been even better than that.

“Everything’s went to plan so far,” Wheeler said. “It’s everything I wished.”

Nola, of course, is a tough act to follow, especially after he dominated the Nationals on Tuesday night. But Wheeler came up in a prospect-filled Mets rotation with deGrom, Syndergaard, Matt Harvey and Steven Matz. Trying to outdo the pitcher who started before him is nothing new.

“It’s friendly competition, and I think it’s healthy to go out there and push yourself and just try to beat their night the night before,” Wheeler said. “But when he goes out there and does what he did last night, it’s tough to beat.”

Wheeler was in complete control against the Nationals. Victor Robles’ one-out single in the third inning was the only hit that he allowed until a two-out infield single by Asdrubal Cabrera in the sixth. He worked ahead in the count, induced mostly weak contact, and was overpowering at times, such as when he struck out Juan Soto on a 98.5 m.p.h. heater in the first inning.

When Wheeler finally gave way to the bullpen with two outs in the seventh inning, David Phelps got out of the inning with one pitch in his Phillies debut, then pitched a scoreless eighth inning before and Brandon Workman recorded the save.

Leave it to Walker, the stand-in for scorching-hot first baseman Rhys Hoskins to come up with the big hit. Girardi said he debated whether to give Hoskins a night off. But the combination of him being 0-for-17 in his career against Scherzer and Walker having three homers against the Nationals ace compelled the manager to give Hoskins a rest.

After J.T. Realmuto and Jean Segura worked walks and another impressive at-bat from rookie Alec Bohm resulted in a single that loaded the bases in the fourth inning, Walker broke his bat on a first-pitch changeup from Scherzer and poked a two-run single into center field.

“Luckily they had me in a shift and was able to sneak it through,” Walker said.

Jay Bruce added a home run to lead off the sixth inning to provide a three-run lead for the Phillies, who suddenly have the sixth-best record in the National League.

“This is probably the best lineup that I’ve seen over the last several years in this division,” Walker said. “We’ll see where we go from there, but we feel really confident in what we’re doing right now and we’re on a good roll.”

It helps, too, to have Nola and Wheeler leading the way.