Phillies need a healthy Zack Wheeler to contend with MLB’s extra wild postseason schedule

Consider this your warning. If you aren’t in the mood for some real talk, then stop reading now. I won’t cast judgment. Most people prefer to experience the present without being plagued by an unshakable sense of despair. Me? I’m a writer. And, well, these are the Phillies.

You may have guessed this by now, but we’re going to talk about the Zack Wheeler thing. When the Phillies placed him on the injured list with forearm tendinitis last week, they did their best to assure us that it wasn’t as much of a thing as it sounded. But the medical records are pretty clear. Whenever you hear the words “forearm tendinitis” used in conjunction with a pitcher, it’s a thing.

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The Phillies used those words in June when reliever Sam Coonrod went to the injured list. He missed the next 63 days. Padres reliever Pierce Johnson has not pitched since hitting the IL in April with what was described as forearm tendinitis. The Mets used the words “forearm tightness” last July when they shut down Jacob deGrom, who did not pitch again until earlier this month. There are exceptions, of course. Dodgers setup man Caleb Ferguson returned 23 days after the club shut him down with forearm tendinitis in June. He has allowed just three runs since.

The Phillies need Wheeler to be one of those exceptions. They may not need him to clinch a playoff berth. But they will certainly need him once they do. With him and Aaron Nola at the top of the rotation, they have a chance at surviving the brutal road to the World Series that awaits this year’s wild-card teams. Take one of them away, and any playoff berth would end up being the hollowest accomplishment since the Donner Party crossed the California state line.

Don’t take my word for it. Just look at the schedule that Major League Baseball will unleash on the National League in October.

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A lot has been made about the addition of an extra wild-card team. But the more impactful change might come in the form of the logistics that baseball is utilizing to accommodate the expanded field. While it is true that more teams will get a chance to compete for a title, it is also true that the best teams have a better chance at winning one than they did before. The current format is set up to reward division titles and pitching depth. Without Wheeler, the Phillies would enter the playoffs with neither.

Consider the road that awaits them as the No. 5 or No. 6 seed in the National League. To refresh your memory, the postseason field now includes six teams in both the American and National Leagues: three division winners, three wild cards. The top two division winners get a bye. The remaining four must win a best-of-three series to advance: No. 3 vs. No. 6, No. 4 vs. No. 5, with all three games played at the home field of the higher seeded team.

So, barring a miracle charge at the Braves and the Mets, the Phillies would open up the postseason with a three-game series on the road. This after finishing the regular season with a 10-day road trip that includes a doubleheader. Oh, and there’s only one day off between Game 162 and the start of the wild-card series. Plus, if they won the wild-card series, they’d open up the division series with two games on the road. With only one day off between Game 3 of the first round and Game 1 of the next.

In other words, just to get to the NLCS, the Phillies would have to survive a stretch of 16 road games in 17 days between Sept. 26 and Oct. 12.

But the bigger deal is how this wacky schedule impacts the pitching.

Take a look at the schedule in table form and you should be able to see the potential impact on a playoff rotation.

Three key points:

1) Whoever starts Game 162 will be unavailable to pitch on normal rest in the wild-card series.

2) Whoever starts Game 161 will be unavailable until an if-necessary Game 3 of the wild-card series.

3) Whoever starts Game 1 of the wild-card series will be unavailable to pitch in the divisional round until Game 2.

In other words, the wild-card format ensures that neither of a team’s top two pitchers will be able to make more than one start in the division series (on normal rest). Meanwhile, a team that has a wild-card bye not only gets a chance to start its ace twice (in Games 1 and 5), it ensures that said ace will not be facing either of the opponent’s top two pitchers in those games (at least, not on normal rest).

In Table format:

That’s a massive advantage to the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds.

Compare that to the schedule back in 2011, when the Phillies cruised to the No. 1 seed in the National League and then lost the division series to a Cardinals team that didn’t secure a playoff spot until the last day of the regular season. Back then, the schedule allowed Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter to start on normal rest three times in a six-game stretch: once in a playoff-clinching win in the regular-season finale, and twice against the Phillies.

Not this year.

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This year, a team’s ace gets to pitch on normal rest a maximum of twice in eight games en route to the NLCS. Same goes for its No. 2 starter. And that’s assuming they can pitch on normal rest in the wild-card round. Which would require someone other than Nola or Wheeler to start a decisive Game 162, if it gets to that point.

Even before Wheeler’s injury, the Phillies had some interesting decisions to make as they lined up their rotation for the second half of September. Now? All they can do is hope that he will be back in the rotation within the next couple of weeks. Even if they don’t need him to get to the playoffs — which they very well might — they are going to need all of both him and Nola once they are there.