CINCINNATI — After he was removed from his last start without completing the fifth inning, Zack Wheeler made his frustration clear.
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So on Tuesday, the Phillies right-hander made sure it wouldn’t happen again. He used 104 pitches — the exact same number he threw in his last outing against the Pirates — to dominate the Reds for seven innings. Wheeler, who had also been left off the National League All-Star roster, tied a career-high with 14 strikeouts in the 4-1 win over Cincinnati.
Wheeler was not selected to his fourth All-Star game through the player ballot. Nor has he been named a replacement like Jesús Luzardo, since Wheeler is lined up to start for the Phillies on Sunday and is therefore ineligible to pitch two days later in the midsummer classic.
But he put on an All-Star caliber performance on Tuesday. Wheeler leaned on all six of his pitches to keep the Reds off-balance. He generated 20 swings-and-misses, including at least one with each of his pitches, and he lowered his ERA to 2.28.
Since Wheeler’s start to the season was delayed as he worked his way back from last year’s thoracic outlet decompression surgery, he has not pitched enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. His marker, 14 starts in, would rank fourth in the NL.
Wheeler did not walk a batter. The solo homer he gave up to Eugenio Suárez to lead off the seventh was just the fourth hit and baserunner Wheeler had allowed all night. But he capped the inning — and his outing — by getting Tyler Stephenson to chase a splitter for his 14th strikeout.
The Phillies’ offense, meanwhile, didn’t have a hit until the third inning against Reds left-hander Andrew Abbott. But once they broke through, they did some immediate damage on the scoreboard. Derek Hill started things off with a double, advanced to third on a single from Justin Crawford, and scored on an RBI groundout from Trea Turner.
Abbott then served up a 3-0 fastball over the middle of the plate to Kyle Schwarber.
The Ohio native doesn’t often swing in 3-0 counts. In fact, across the first 28 times Schwarber has gotten ahead 3-0 this season, he swung just once, which resulted in a foul tip. Three times, he was intentionally walked. The other 24 times, Schwarber took the 3-0 pitch.
But this time, Schwarber delivered a 408-foot home run to right field, his 31st of the season and 11th against a left-hander.
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The offense tacked on another run in the eighth inning on a sacrifice fly from Edmundo Sosa.
Orion Kerkering got into some trouble in the bottom of the frame, issuing back-to-back walks to bring the tying run to the plate. He nearly got out of it, inducing a ground ball to Alec Bohm for a potential inning-ending double play, but Elly De La Cruz was ruled safe at second while Sal Stewart was called out at first.
The Phillies challenged the safe call on De La Cruz, believing that he had abandoned the base path by turning toward the outfield rather than third base after the play. After a lengthy review, the safe call was upheld. Both pitching coach Caleb Cotham and infield coach Bobby Dickerson were ejected.
Following the delay, JJ Bleday battled Kerkering for a nine-pitch walk to load the bases. Interim manager Don Mattingly brought in Jonathan Bowlan, who stranded all three runners with a strikeout.
Jhoan Duran sidestepped a soft infield single to strike out the side in the ninth, picking up his 22nd save of the season.
Dan Baker has been the Phillies’ public-address announcer for 54 seasons, the longest active run and third-longest all-time. And on July 14, he will become the first PA announcer to work three All-Star games. He sat down with “Phillies Extra” to discuss his memories from 1976 and 1996 at Veterans Stadium, his favorite names to announce, and more. Watch here.
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