Wheeler dominates Braves yet again, Phillies achieve important weekend goal

Wheeler dominates Braves yet again, Phillies achieve important weekend goal originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Zack Wheeler went out Saturday night and pitched the Phillies to their first weekend goal of achieving at least a split in their final series of the season against the rival Braves.

The Phillies’ ace delivered seven scoreless innings in a 3-0 win. He is 13-6 with a 2.63 ERA and 0.98 WHIP and continues to keep pace with Atlanta’s Chris Sale (15-3, 2.58, 1.02) in the National League Cy Young race.

“Yeah, I hope so,” Wheeler said when asked if he feels he’s positioned himself well to win the award. “You come into the season and that’s one of your personal goals and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with personal goals because if you set them and accomplish them or come even close to it, you’re helping the team a lot and that’s all I try to do every year, be the best I possibly can.”

By winning at least two of their four meetings with the Braves this weekend, the Phillies are guaranteed a division lead of either five or seven games after Sept. 1. With no remaining head-to-head matchups, the Braves will have a difficult time catching up.

Wheeler retired the first six hitters he faced, just like Ranger Suarez on Friday night. But while Suarez unraveled in the third and fourth innings, Wheeler kept hitting spots.

The Phillies’ infield made it tough on him in the top of the third with a Weston Wilson error at third base and a poorly executed double-play try by shortstop Trea Turner and second baseman Edmundo Sosa that resulted in only one out. Wheeler navigated his way out of the inning without damage by popping up Whit Merrifield and rolling Jorge Soler over on a grounder to third.

Sosa, who was honored before the game with the Phillies’ 2024 Heart and Hustle Award, more than made up for his defensive miscue with a 450-foot home run to left-center off Max Fried in the bottom of the third. It was the Phillies’ second-longest homer of the season behind only a Turner 459-footer (also off Fried) in July. Sosa was fired up, flipping his bat and gesturing toward the dugout to hype up his teammates, then hulking up as he crossed home plate.

“The truth is, I felt really good about it, to contribute so early in the game and give us a headstart,” Sosa said. “I connected with the ball and looked at the dugout just to give them that hype, that energy, just to hopefully keep the rally going and score more runs.”

That one run was all Wheeler needed because he had everything working. He allowed only four hits, all of them singles. There might be others on his level but no one better.

Since joining the Phillies before the 2020 season, Wheeler has faced the Braves 16 times in the regular season and has a 2.07 ERA, allowing two earned runs or fewer in 13 of them.

“I think that the brighter the lights, the better the command gets, the better the stuff gets, the better the execution gets,” manager Rob Thomson said. “”You can tell when he’s locked in and he was locked in tonight. He’s a big-game pitcher. These types of games, you feel like you’re gonna get six, seven, eight innings out of him because he just gets locked in and he pounds the zone like he did tonight.”

The most dangerous at-bat of the night for Atlanta belonged to the hottest hitter in baseball, Matt Olson, with one out in the top of the sixth. He clobbered a ball 401 feet to straightaway center that looked like a home run off the bat but was robbed by Johan Rojas, who raced to the wall in time and calmly reached over without leaping. It wasn’t even the most impressive robbery of the night as Michael Harris II went full Spiderman to take one away from Austin Hays in the seventh.

Wheeler responded after the Olson near-homer with a three-pitch strikeout of Travis d’Arnaud, that whipped the sellout crowd of 42,730 into a frenzy. Turner kept the momentum in the home dugout with a leadoff home run in the bottom half of the inning. It was his first homer since Aug. 18 and just his second in 32 games dating back to July 24.

“I just pride myself on big games and big moments,” Wheeler said. “The crowd was electric out there tonight and I was feeling it. Every time they’re out there and I’m out there, it’s pretty cool to be a part of. They brought the electricity tonight and I just tried to match it.

Sosa provided more insurance with an RBI double to the right-center gap in the bottom of the seventh. Third-base coach Dusty Wathan aggressively sent the fast and athletic Wilson all the way from first base despite Wilson getting a late start and it barely worked.

The Phillies are 80-56 with 26 games left. They all count because the Phils entered Saturday tied with the Brewers for the 2-seed in the National League playoffs and the difference between finishing second or third is having to play an extra round, likely against these Braves.

The win was also the 100th of Wheeler’s career, a milestone made even sweeter because it came against his hometown team.

“It was special. Number one was against these guys and number 100,” he said. “Number one was back home in Atlanta where I’m from and it was really cool to make my debut against that team. I just remember Jason Heyward was my first strikeout and I worked out with him every offseason. Number 100 against these guys, it’s been a long road. Just believing in myself, just work hard and get wins.”