Philly Leader

Zack Wheeler, the Philadelphia Phillies pitcher, has reiterated his ambition to win the National League Cy Young Award. He made his final case during Saturday’s 6-3 loss to the Nationals at Nationals Park, where he allowed two runs in 6 1/3 innings, struck out 11, and walked two. Wheeler became the first Phillies pitcher since 1893 to go six-plus innings and allow two or fewer runs in 11 consecutive starts.

Wheeler concluded the season with a record of 16-7 and a 2.57 ERA, marking the lowest ERA by a Philadelphia starter since Aaron Nola's 2.37 ERA in 2018. Phillies manager Rob Thomson commented on Wheeler's performance: “I just told him it’s been a hell of a year [when I removed him from the game in the seventh]. That’s Cy Young-worthy for me.”

Despite throwing only 90 pitches through six innings, Thomson had no reservations about letting Wheeler start the seventh inning. During that inning, Wheeler struck out Juan Yepez on seven pitches to reach 200 innings for the second time in his career.

“It’s a goal these days: get 200 innings, 200 strikeouts,” Wheeler said. “Try to get some wins. Try to help the team the best I can. I feel like if I’m doing that, I’m helping the team. You have personal and team goals. The team goal is one goal, and that’s to win the World Series.”

The Phillies are now locked into the NL’s No. 2 seed for postseason play and will have home-field advantage in the NL Division Series but not necessarily in later rounds should they advance.

“We’d like home-field advantage, but it’s not the end of the world,” Wheeler stated. “We’ve still got home-field advantage for a little bit. We’ve just got to get there. We’ll worry about that later.”

Wheeler's main competition for the Cy Young Award is Atlanta's Chris Sale who leads MLB in several categories including wins (18), ERA (2.38), FIP (2.08), and fWAR (6.4). However, Sale has not pitched since September 19 due to health concerns.

“I did the best I could,” Wheeler remarked regarding his competition with Sale for the award. “Chris had a really good year also... Good for him.”

While Sale ranks higher than Wheeler in several metrics such as wins and strikeouts, Wheeler surpasses him in WHIP (.096 vs .101), opponents’ batting average (.192 vs .216), on-base percentage (.253 vs .269), and OPS (.581 vs .588).

“I didn’t feel as consistent as numbers probably look,” said Wheeler about his performance this season.

Wheeler has shown durability throughout this season with more innings pitched than Sale (200 vs 177⅔) and more quality starts (26 vs 18). This consistency was recognized by Phillies management who awarded him a three-year contract extension worth $126 million in March.

As he enters postseason play with strong momentum—holding a career playoff ERA of 2.42—Wheeler aims to maintain his form: “Just try to keep momentum going.”