Wheeler shows no signs of slowing down

SAN FRANCISCO -- For Zack Wheeler, the number of candles he will extinguish on his birthday cake Thursday does not jibe with his radar-gun readings. Wheeler, who turns 34, hit 98 mph as he fired six shutout innings in the Phillies’ 1-0, 10-inning loss to the Giants on Tuesday night.

At an age when most starters turn toward finesse, Wheeler remains one of the best power pitchers to throw every five days, and he seems far from done.

“I’m getting a little older but the body feels good,” he said. “Our trainer does a nice job keeping me on the field. I’ve had some hiccups here and there, some injuries, but it’s baseball. It’s going to happen.”

The older one gets, the faster the pages seem to fly off the calendar, making it tougher for Wheeler to fathom that June 9 will mark 15 years since the Giants selected him with the sixth pick of the 2009 Amateur Draft.

“Yeah, it feels like a couple of years ago that all that happened,” he said, “got drafted, played a couple of years [in the Giants’ system], got traded. It does go really fast.”

Wheeler was not at his most efficient against the Giants. He was gone after six innings and 101 pitches. He endured three nine-pitch at-bats that resulted in a walk and two strikeouts, and went to full counts with five of his first 10 hitters.

Still, he held the Giants’ injury-depleted lineup to two singles, easily pitching well enough to earn his seventh win. Instead, the Phillies lost their third in a row for the first time this season as the Majors’ most prolific offense went stone cold against a melange of relievers in a San Francisco bullpen game.

The Phillies were blanked for the second time this year, both in Wheeler starts, continuing a three-city trip that has borne some frustration at the plate. They have scored 16 runs over the past five games. Six came in the ninth inning of the lone win during that stretch, in Colorado on Saturday, meaning they were held to 10 runs over the other 47 innings.

“It’s baseball,” catcher J.T. Realmuto said. “We were obviously really hot at home. We haven’t swung the bats as well on this road trip, but there’s nothing I’m seeing out of the guys that pinpoints why it’s happening. I think it’s just part of the ebbs and flows of the season.”

Phillies hitters had a unique challenge Tuesday facing five pitchers with totally different styles. Most notable was the four innings from journeyman right-hander Spencer Howard, the former Phillie, who made his 2024 big league debut in his first appearance with the Giants.

“He filled up the strike zone,” manager Rob Thomson said.

The Giants ended the game with two right-handers who could not be more different. In the eighth inning, the Phillies faced Tyler Rogers, a submariner whose 82 mph “sinkers” and 72 mph sliders seem to rise. In the ninth and 10th they saw Sean Hjelle, a 6-foot-11 power pitcher.

Realmuto struck out against Rogers and stranded the potential go-ahead run in the 10th with a weak ground ball against Hjelle.

“I went from looking down in the dirt on the mound to the next guy trying to look at the scoreboard to find the ball, so it’s a lot of different eye lines and a lot of different angles,” Realmuto said. “Nevertheless, you have to try to get the job done. We just couldn’t come up with a hit tonight.”

Realmuto’s leadoff double in the sixth extended his hit streak to 17 games. That established a club record in the modern era (since 1900) for catchers. But Realmuto gravely wounded the rally when he was thrown out at third trying to advance on a Bryce Harper grounder to short. Realmuto thought Harper’s ball was destined for left field.

The Phillies’ bullpen excelled. Orion Kerkering, José Alvarado and Jeff Hoffman each pitched a shutout inning. Matt Strahm did not surrender a hit in the 10th but allowed the winning run on Luis Matos’ one-out sacrifice fly, which scored placed runner Tyler Fitzgerald.

The Phillies were not able to get their placed runner home in the top of the inning, as Hjelle induced three ground balls, all but dooming them to their ninth straight loss at Oracle Park dating to 2021.