Wheeler's ST debut: fried chicken, new pitch, 4 K's

CLEARWATER, Fla. -- Trays of Raising Cane’s chicken, fries and Texas toast filled two tables in the Phillies' clubhouse on Tuesday.

Only Zack Wheeler could treat teammates to a pregame meal like this. Wheeler is a fast food/junk food aficionado. A couple of years ago, he and former teammate Zach Eflin used the vacant locker between them at Citizens Bank Park to stock a variety of sweet and salty snacks. Last summer, teammates celebrated his 10 years of MLB service time by bringing bags of McDonald’s into the clubhouse.

“I got them my type of food,” Wheeler said, a day after signing a three-year, $126 million contract extension. “Get them nice and greased up for the game.”

Wheeler is back to baseball after a busy two weeks. He agreed to the contract extension on Feb. 24. His wife, Dominique, gave birth to their daughter, Winter, on Feb. 27, making him a father of three. The team held a press conference to announce the deal on Monday.

On Tuesday, Wheeler pitched in his first Grapefruit League game, a 3-2 loss to the Orioles at BayCare Ballpark. He debuted a splitter, which is the newest addition to his already formidable arsenal. Wheeler had talked with Phillies pitching coach Caleb Cotham throughout the offseason about finding a pitch to better combat lefties. They talked about changeups. Wheeler texted Cotham photos of different grips, but they finally settled on a splitter.

“I think this could put me over the top and hopefully get a Cy Young,” Wheeler said. “That’s what I want to do. If I can take care of lefties, like I do righties, hopefully it’ll take care of itself.”

Right-handers batted .195 with a .314 slugging percentage last season against Wheeler. Left-handers batted .261 and slugged .412.

“I think this is why he’s at where he’s at,” Cotham said. “It’s constantly trying to get a little better. When these guys are already really, really good, those little bitty details are the difference. For him, it's maybe another option for a lefty. He can save a cutter, save a slider, save a fastball, just to make them kind of respect the speed gap a little bit. And that's kind of the goal of a changeup for anybody.

“They can't sit maybe as much in one speed band, and he can play the back and forth game enough. Because it doesn't have to be great. We've talked about just throwing a really good one that's consistent. My hunch is he's capable of making something that’s really nasty, but it's like, let's just get something that we can repeat and do and use in our arsenal to not take away from his strengths.”

Wheeler threw three splitters on Tuesday. Heston Kjerstad fouled off a 1-1 split in the first at-bat in the second. Two batters later, Kyle Stowers swung and missed a 1-0 split. Wheeler yanked a 2-2 split down and in before striking him out.

“Earlier in the spring I was kind of slowing my arm down a little bit when I was trying to throw it,” Wheeler said. “[Kyle] Schwarber, I was facing those guys, and they kind of pointed it out to me. I was just trying to throw it a little bit harder today. The last bullpen, it was a little better. It’s good to have that feedback.”

Wheeler said he enjoys this part of the game. He came to camp last spring wanting to throw a sweeper. He did. Right-handers batted .169 against it.

“It keeps it fun, it keeps the hitters guessing,” Wheeler said. “If you keep the same bag of tools, they’re going to know what you throw in certain counts a lot, what you start them with, what you finish them with.”

Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto liked what he saw.

“It’s just having something that’s not hard and coming into a lefty,” he said. “Pretty much everything he throws is angled coming into a lefty, whether it’s the slider, curveball, cutter, even his four-seam cuts a little bit. So everything is coming into a lefty. So something that goes the other direction that takes some pace off is just going to help him.”

Asked if he was surprised to see Wheeler learning another new pitch, Realmuto said no. But then, he also wasn’t surprised to see Wheeler bringing fried chicken into the clubhouse.

“I only had two of them, but I could feel it,” Realmuto said. “I definitely felt it when I was running from second to home. I can’t have that much grease before a game.”