Zack Wheeler’s ‘good rest’ appears to be a shrewd gamble by the Phillies

When Zack Wheeler walked into the manager’s office on Aug. 25, the Phillies had the fifth-best record in the National League and a 3½-game lead (4½ games including a head-to-head tiebreaker) over the Milwaukee Brewers for the last playoff spot.

It was time to make a calculation.

Five days earlier, toward the end of a 5⅓-inning start against the New York Mets, Wheeler felt a twinge in his right forearm, near the elbow. It wasn’t anything, he said, that he hadn’t dealt with previously, including earlier this season. The ace — who had given up 10 earned runs in his last 11⅓ innings — was adamant he could pitch through it, all but raising his arms like Lt. Frank Drebin in The Naked Gun movies and shouting amid an explosion, “Nothing to see here!”

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Team officials didn’t doubt Wheeler’s toughness. But they also recognized the Phillies’ position in the standings and knew that Wheeler’s next two starts were scheduled against the Pittsburgh Pirates and Arizona Diamondbacks, noncontenders who, at the time, were a combined 41 games under .500.

So, interim manager Rob Thomson, pitching coach Caleb Cotham, athletic trainer Paul Buchheit, general manager Sam Fuld, and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski made a suggestion: What if Wheeler went on the injured list for two weeks and gave his arm a break?

Wheeler initially disagreed with the idea. After all, teams don’t usually shut down their best pitcher unless he’s unable to pitch. And two weeks turned into a month.

But now that Wheeler is back and set for his second post-injured-list start Tuesday night in Chicago against the Cubs in the opening game of the most crucial road trip in recent franchise history, it appears to have been a shrewd gamble. Because although the Phillies wagered that they wouldn’t lose ground in the wild-card race without Wheeler, the odds of going anywhere in the postseason if he was unavailable would have been way, way worse.

“The feeling from a medical perspective was he probably could’ve pushed through it, but it would not have gone away,” Dombrowski said last week, detailing the team’s decision. “It would’ve been one of those things that would have continued to linger for him. You want what’s best for him. That’s really what it comes down to. But there was the calculated aspect. He could keep going out there, but we said, ‘We’d rather get you to be the Zack Wheeler that we know you have inside you and get that same stuff out of you.’”

Wheeler’s stuff was electric in his return Wednesday night against the Toronto Blue Jays. The average velocity on his four-seam fastball ticked up to 97.9 mph, a 2-mph bump from his season average. His sinker averaged 97 mph, a 1.6-mph increase. He threw 16 pitches that registered 98 mph or more, according to Statcast, doubling his overall season total. In his previous eight starts combined, he threw one pitch that was clocked at 98.

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Oh, and a 99-mph fastball to Teoscar Hernández in the second inning was Wheeler’s fastest pitch of the season.

“It was a good rest,” said Wheeler, who came back with the Phillies leading the Brewers by 2½ games (3½ with the tiebreaker). “I thought the rest helped. As long as everything’s synced up and I’m feeling right out there, a little rest, I guess that’s what comes of it.”

But the Phillies’ plan didn’t go perfectly, either. Wheeler missed the starts against Pittsburgh and Arizona — lefty Bailey Falter filled in and won both games — and reported lingering soreness while playing catch a few days before a scheduled bullpen session in San Francisco. An MRI revealed elbow inflammation.

The Phillies continue to raise eyebrows by insisting it was nothing major. Still, Wheeler wasn’t cleared to throw off a mound until Sept. 13, 10 days later than he intended. He missed three more starts, including two against the punchless Miami Marlins. Falter went 2-0 with a no-decision in those games.

Dombrowski said the Phillies never wondered if they made the proper decision. If anything, the hiccup in Wheeler’s recovery only strengthened the team’s resolve that it did the right thing.

But what if Wheeler’s absence had dragged on another week? Dombrowski admits the Phillies contemplated how long they could keep him on the shelf without giving in to his claims that he could grit his teeth and take the ball, even while compromised.

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“At some point, we would’ve run into that scenario where we would’ve had to say, ‘OK, how are we going to get you back to pitch for the postseason? Do we have to pitch a little bit through this?’” Dombrowski said. “But fortunately the timing worked out where he was able to go out there [last week], pitch four innings, 55 to 60 pitches, and build from there. So, if we can make the postseason, he’ll be able to go like a regular starter out there.”

Off the tops of their heads, Thomson and Dombrowski struggled to recall a comparable situation. Thomson cited Marcus Stroman’s return from knee surgery in 2015 to make four regular-season starts in September and three in the playoffs for the Blue Jays. In 2019, Blake Snell had arthroscopic elbow surgery on July 25 and rejoined the Tampa Bay Rays’ rotation on Sept. 17 for three regular-season starts and one (plus two relief appearances) in the postseason.

Team officials revisited Wheeler’s unconventional April, when he began the season on time despite not pitching in spring training. Two of his first three starts were rough, and he didn’t have the arm strength to get beyond six innings until his fifth start. The Phillies knew they wouldn’t have that kind of time to get him ready for the playoffs, but the sense was that he would have less rust to shake off late in the season than at the beginning.

Wheeler’s pitch count is expected to climb to 70-75 against the Cubs. He may extend to about 90 pitches Sunday in Washington, his last scheduled start before a potential Game 1 of a wild-card series on Oct. 7.

But Dombrowski said the Phillies were less worried about how best to rev Wheeler back up after putting him into neutral for several weeks than they were that he would break down if they allowed him to keep going.

“There were other people that I had worked with in particular years that pushed through [an injury] and then weren’t the same when we got to the postseason, and it cost us,” Dombrowski said. “There was no question they could do it, they could push through it, and then all of a sudden, where they were at that particular time, they weren’t the same guys. So, to me, the wiser thing was, ‘OK, let’s learn from the experience of having watched guys do it.’”

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Especially given the Phillies’ wild-card edge and Charmin-soft schedule in late August and the first half of September.

“I think he could have pitched through it [in August],” Thomson said, “but the question would have been, would he be available [now]?”

That was one dice roll the Phillies weren’t willing to take.