ALLENTOWN – In his third rehab appearance working his way back from thoracic outlet syndrome, Zack Wheeler looked sharp in 4 ⅓ scoreless innings at Coca-Cola Park Wednesday night.
On a chilly evening, Wheeler, pitching with no sleeves as expected, had an early feel for his breaking pitches, especially his sweeper. He snapped off 13 of them, with seven either called a strike or whiffed at, recording three of his six strikeouts on the pitch.
“Felt really good,” Wheeler said of his offspeed and breaking pitches.
“They were working today and the best so far. Got a little sloppy there in the end, but that tends to happen in every start. Early on they were really good. The sweeper was working, the cutter was working, struggled with the curveball but that’s fine. It will come.”
Wheeler, whose benchmark was either 60 pitches or four innings, went out for the fifth for an additional down and up, tossing 4 1/3 innings, allowing an earned run on a two-out bloop single to centerfield for his lone blemish. He allowed three hits in total, a walk, hit a batter and struck out six Red Wings.
General Manager Preston Mattingly sat behind home plate intently watching each pitch the 35-year-old threw.
“Just really wanted to see how his body's moving, how the stuff's coming out, the shapes of the pitches. I thought everything looked pretty good on our end,” Mattingly said of Wheeler's performance.
The fastball velocity was once again noticeably down compared to his usual heater that consistently sits at 96 mph. Wheeler topped out at 94 mph while averaging 92.9 mph throughout his outing.
“If the fastball isn’t going to be there, you have to figure it out and get outs. You have to move the ball around and really nail that down if the velo isn’t there. I remember a year or two ago I came in throwing about this speed, it was touch. You take pride in being a big league pitcher and figuring things out maybe a different way than normal.”
Wheeler has thrown bullpen sessions at Citizens Bank Park when the Phillies are home working with pitching coach Caleb Cotham making tweaks to his delivery. He felt those changes helped achieve the goals he set out to accomplish in his third outing.
“We are getting there. I felt a little out of sync with my mechanics out of the windup mostly. We found what it was, it was something with my leg lift. It basically happens in spring training every year and this is my spring training. We kind of fixed it and felt a lot better today and a lot more smooth.”
As Wheeler mentioned, this is his version of spring training and he still needs more time and perhaps more than his next scheduled rehab start to rejoin the big league rotation.
“I’m still a little bit off. That’s why you take these starts and try to tinker here and there but not too much. Let your body adjust and come along as it plans to. There’s nothing more I can do to help that other than go out there and get those reps in,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler is scheduled to make a fourth start with Lehigh Valley with Tuesday tentatively looking like the next time he will take the mound.
