Alvarado-Alvarez showdown turns tide on Phils

HOUSTON -- It all happened so quickly that Zack Wheeler didn’t even have time to process the fact that his manager, Rob Thomson, was quietly striding out from the third-base dugout at Minute Maid Park, ready to take the ball from his hand.

Wheeler wanted to stay in -- but Thomson was upon him before the right-hander could even think about what he wanted to say.

One minute, Wheeler was on the mound, pitching the game of his life. Before he could even process it, he was walking off the field in the sixth inning, head bowed. A matter of moments later, a harsh crack signaled the departure of the baseball from this zip code, a mammoth three-run clout by Yordan Alvarez off reliever José Alvarado, destined to carry the Astros to a 4-1 come-from-behind win in the decisive Game 6 of the World Series at Minute Maid Park.

And that was that.

“When he hit the ball, the sound, you say, ‘OK, that’s gone,’” Alvarado said. “Because the guy is a power hitter. I watched it. But, again, sometimes you win, and sometimes you tip your cap.”

“Going into the Series, it was always kind of Alvarado on Alvarez,” Thomson said. “It was the sixth inning, and I felt like the normal back end of the bullpen guys could get through it.”

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Wheeler had blanked the Astros through five innings, any traces of uncertainty stemming from his arm fatigue gone as his fastball darted and zipped like it had in the National League Championship Series. All it took was a fluky hit-by-pitch of No. 9 hitter Martín Maldonado -- who clearly leaned into it, the Phillies say -- and a bleeder through the middle of the infield by World Series MVP Jeremy Peña. It only cost Wheeler 70 pitches -- but that was all he’d get.

“Honestly, [Thomson] just caught me off guard,” Wheeler said. “So I didn’t even think about that, really quick, like that. Sometimes, you may see a guy warming up in the bullpen or something like that, and you can kind of expect it. But they’re back there [hidden under the left-field concourse], so …

“That’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s ultimately [Thomson’s] call, and that’s the call he made.”

In a scene reminiscent of Rays skipper Kevin Cash’s controversial decision to pull Blake Snell during the decisive Game 6 of the 2020 World Series, things immediately went south when the reliever of choice -- this time, Alvarado -- entered the game for a lefty-on-lefty matchup against Alvarez. But there wasn’t so much controversy this time, with Wheeler’s teammates sticking by their skipper’s decision.

Bryce Harper said he wasn’t surprised. Neither was Kyle Schwarber, whose homer off Framber Valdez had given the Phillies a 1-0 lead in the top of the frame.

“Trust me, we trust whatever decision [Thomson] makes,” Schwarber said. “I don’t know what [Wheeler] thinks. But everyone trusts what [Thomson] does. Whenever he makes a decision, we’ve got his back. I mean, heck, you’ve got Alvarado throwing 99 mph left-on-left sinkers. And [Alvarez] ran into it and hit it out. Tip your cap. That’s a good hitter over there. I would take [Alvarado] on him any day of the week.”

Though there were concerns about Wheeler’s diminished velocity in a difficult Game 2, extra rest did him good as he began the outing with fastballs in the 98 mph range and maintained 97s into the sixth, holding the Astros scoreless through five efficient frames. Thomson asserted that the move had nothing to do with Wheeler’s stuff; he preferred the matchup with Alvarado, with one out and runners on the corners for Alvarez, needing a strikeout.

There was certainly logic to it. Alvarado had only allowed three homers to lefties on his sinker throughout his six-year career. Wheeler had retired Alvarez twice in the game, on three pitches, but Alvarez had hit the ball in the air both times -- and in this situation, that would lead to the tying run scoring from third.

Though Alvarez has essentially neutral strikeout splits against lefties and righties and Wheeler and Alvarado have nearly identical strikeout rates against lefties, Thomson preferred the fresh lefty who wields 99 mph sinkers and the cutter with the 56 percent whiff rate to the righty who had already seen Alvarez twice. And the controversial leadoff hit-by-pitch by Maldonado loomed large, fundamentally changing the situation by helping put a pair of runners on.

“If there's one guy on, probably let [Wheeler] face him, but once they're first and third and Alvarez is a fly ball guy, I thought the best way to get us past that inning was to try and punch him out right there,” Thomson said.

It was reminiscent of the situation in Game 1 when Thomson summoned Alvarado in the fifth inning for this exact stretch of hitters featuring a pair of lefties -- Alvarez, Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker -- and in that game, it worked, with Alvarado retiring all three. It didn’t work in Game 4, when Alvarado entered with the bases loaded and plunked Alvarez before allowing a two-run double to Bregman and a sac fly to Tucker. Alvarado retired Alvarez in Game 5, too.

From all that usage, it was clear that the Phillies’ staff wanted Alvarado matched up against Alvarez in the biggest moments. This is the guy who had a 1.48 ERA with 40 strikeouts in 24 1/3 second-half innings, after all. Though he had allowed runs in four of his 12 appearances this postseason entering Saturday, he was the best lefty the Phillies had -- and they’d treated him as such.

"I mean, yeah, that's a tough decision because of how good Alvy's been for us recently,” catcher J.T. Realmuto said. “He's been one of the best pitchers in baseball over the last few months. Obviously, [Wheeler] was throwing the ball incredible tonight.

“But you have two lefties coming up in the next three batters. I'm sure that's the pocket that they had circled before the game -- this is where we want to bring [Alvarado] in. It's just one of those decisions where it's a tough one. I'm sure, for Thoms, it was a coin flip for him."

When the Series began, it seemed like Thomson was pushing all the right buttons with his bullpen. On Saturday, one of the game’s best hitters got the better of him.

“He beat him,” Thomson said. “[Alvarado] got behind Alvarez, and a 99 mph fastball, he just beat him to the spot. That's what good hitters do sometimes.”