Wheeler's historic Game 1 gem turned aside after 'pen meltdown

PHILADELPHIA – Trea Turner walked into the Phillies’ clubhouse on Saturday night, more than a half hour after the Phillies turned Zack Wheeler’s latest historic postseason pitching performance into a footnote.

Turner was still in uniform. He had bats in his hands.

Turner had spent the time immediately following the Phillies’ 6-2 loss to the Mets in Game 1 of the NL Division Series at Citizens Bank Park in the batting cage. The Phils entered the 2024 postseason trying to exorcise the swing-and-chase demons from the 2023 NL Championship Series and prove that a good offense won't be bothered by the bye week. But the offense’s inability to hit the Mets’ pitching and the bullpen’s inability to put away hitters in the eighth dropped the Phillies into a 0-1 hole in the best-of-five series.

The Phillies are 0-7 in postseason history when they have lost Game 1 of a series.

“Wheels was perfect tonight,” Turner said.

“Obviously, as an offense, I feel like we wasted that start,” Bryce Harper said.

Nobody could argue otherwise.

For seven innings on Saturday, Wheeler put together one of the most dominant pitching performances in Phillies postseason history. He allowed one hit in seven scoreless innings. He struck out nine and walked four. He got more swings and misses (30) than any Phillies pitcher in the regular season or postseason since at least 2008. He threw more pitches (111) than any Phillies pitcher in the postseason since Roy Halladay (126) in Game 5 of the 2011 NLDS.

Wheeler’s 2.18 ERA in the postseason is now the third-lowest in MLB history (minimum 10 starts) since earned runs became official in 1913. His three postseason starts of six-plus innings, two or fewer hits allowed and zero runs allowed are the most by any pitcher in MLB history.

“I felt good, I felt locked in,” Wheeler said. “Everything was working.”

Wheeler opened the game with 10 consecutive fastballs. All 10 were strikes. His four-seam fastball averaged 98.3 mph in the first, up 3.0 mph from the regular season. Francisco Lindor lined out on a 98.8 mph fastball. Mark Vientos struck out swinging on a 97.9 mph fastball. Wheeler threw Brandon Nimmo an 0-1 fastball at 99 mph. He hadn’t touched 99 mph since Game 6 of the 2022 World Series.

Nimmo swung and missed at a curveball to end the inning.

The crowd roared. It roared even louder when Kyle Schwarber crushed a leadoff home run into the second deck in the first inning to give the Phillies a 1-0 lead.

For a while, it looked like it might be enough.

• Mets-Phillies NL Division Series Game 2 FAQ (Sun., 4 ET, FS1)

“You could see it, especially with the shadows early on, it’s just like, ‘Dude, this guy’s throwing airplanes up there,’” Mets designated hitter J.D. Martinez said about Wheeler. “The ball’s taking off every which way. It’s like, good luck. We’ve just got to get him out of the game. We’ve got to find a way to get him out. Because the way he was throwing the ball today was just unhittable.”

But the Phillies’ offense had just as many problems. They struggled with the shadows through the first seven innings, like the Mets. Schwarber’s homer left his bat at 115.8 mph, but the Phils did not hit another ball harder than 94.6 mph until the eighth inning.

“It’s the same thing, man,” Harper said. “Chasing balls in the dirt, didn’t work deep into counts like we should have. We’ve got to understand what they’re going to try to do to us and flip the switch as an offense immediately.”

And what are the Mets trying to do to them?

“They’re going to bury stuff and try to get us to chase as much as possible,” Harper said.

Yet, the Phillies still had the lead entering the eighth. Phillies manager Rob Thomson sent right-hander Jeff Hoffman to the mound.

Hoffman might be Thomson’s most trusted reliever. He got ahead of Francisco Alvarez 0-1, but allowed a leadoff single. He got ahead of Lindor 0-2, but walked him. He got ahead of Vientos 0-2, but allowed a game-tying single on a 1-2 slider.

“I would’ve liked it to break a little bit more,” Hoffman said about the pitch to Vientos. “Thought I threw it in a pretty good spot. But we’ll see. We’ll see how he handles it tomorrow.”

Matt Strahm followed. He threw 17 pitches. All 17 were strikes. But he allowed two singles and a sacrifice fly to make it 3-1.

“They smelled blood in the water, they got scrappy and I got got,” Strahm said.

Orion Kerkering allowed two more runs before the inning ended.

Now the Phillies must try to do what few teams have done. In all best-of-five postseason series, the team that wins Game 1 has won the series 109 of 152 times (72 percent). In Division Series in the current 2-2-1 format, road teams that won Game 1 have advanced 33 of 45 times (73 percent).

So, how do the Phillies bounce back to beat the odds? How do they hit better on Sunday in Game 2?

“I mean, wash it off in the shower, come back with a new attitude, ready to win the day,” Nick Castellanos said.