ARLINGTON, Texas — There seemed to be a script the Phillies were following during their three-game series at Globe Life Field against the Texas Rangers. It went something like this: Starting pitchers struggle in the first inning and give up runs before settling in while the offense eventually takes the lead and the defense performs stellar plays before the bullpen draws the final curtain.
The story remained the same Sunday as the Phillies swept the Rangers with a 4-2 win, upped their season record to 68-49 and gave themselves a 5.5 lead in the National League East on the New York Mets, who dropped another game to the Milwaukee Brewers.
Command was the one thing manager Rob Thomson was looking for from starting pitcher Zack Wheeler, who had his start pushed back a few days due to a shoulder that had developed some soreness over the last few weeks. Since a complete-game one-hitter back on July 6, Wheeler hadn’t pitched more than six innings in four outings entering Sunday, and had compiled a 4.94 ERA.
Command wasn’t exactly good for Wheeler Sunday, nor was his velocity as it was down a few miles an hour. But he powered through five innings of work after giving up his two runs in the first inning on a home run by Joc Pederson. Wheeler gave up just three hits, walked three and threw 51 of his 83 pitches for strikes. He also struck out seven.
“I felt a lot better. I felt good. I felt healthy,” Wheeler, who improved to 10-5 on the season, said. “Still just a little off so just got to keep working at that. It wasn’t the prettiest today but got through it. Trying to figure it out. The past four starts have been off, but it’s that part of the season where the innings are starting to rack up a little bit so it’s just catching up to me a little bit. Just got to push through it. It’s all just a cycle so it will come back around and I’ll be fine.”
Wheeler admitted to the club at some point over the past few weeks that there was some soreness in the shoulder but an MRI showed no damage and now it’s just a matter of throwing through it and getting himself back to 100 percent.
“Honestly, it’s been a while,” he said of the soreness. “I finally just got to that point where we wanted to go get an image of it so we can treat what specifically needed to be treated and not try to just guess. We did that and today I felt perfectly normal. Just those couple of days and getting the right treatment in helped me out.”
The bullpen, bolstered before the game with the addition of David Robertson after his gear-up stint in Lehigh Valley, was just about perfect for its four innings as Tanner Banks, Matt Strahm, Orion Kerkering and Jhoan Duran allowed a combined three hits, no walks and struck out three. The relievers were much needed again Sunday with Wheeler fighting through his five innings.
“When he’s on his fastball command, he’s really good,” catcher J.T. Realmuto said of Wheeler. “Starts like today, where he’s a little erratic with his fastball, you kind of have to find what’s working that day and what he’s able to command in the zone. It’s kind of different from start to start which off-speed he’s feeling the best with. Today it took us a little bit to find and we wound up using his split a little bit more than we had game-planned for just because it was one of his better pitches today.
“I just think those guys (the bullpen) being a little more reassured of when their going to pitch and having a little more specific roles and knowing who’s pitching the ninth inning. I think it just give them a better idea of when to get ready and what to prepare for.”
The defense made terrific plays once again to help preserve the win. After the Phillies took a 3-2 lead in the fifth, Harrison Bader made a running, over-the-fence catch of what would have been a game-tying home run by Corey Seager. Trea Turner made an over-the-shoulder catch in the seventh with a man on and had another gem in the ninth when he went to the hole toward third to backhand a grounder before he made a strong throw to first to get Jake Burger to lead off the ninth.
“Unbelievable,” Thomson said of Bader’s play. “We played really good defense. This whole series. Well, for a while now we’ve been playing really solid defense.”
After falling behind 2-0 in the first, the Phillies cut the lead in half on an RBI double by Bryce Harper in the fourth before taking the lead for good in the fifth when Edmundo Sosa hit a solo home run to left, followed by a Bryson Stott single. Stott then stole second and scored on a single by Weston Wilson for a 3-2 lead.
The Phillies tacked on an insurance run in the ninth, by again playing the small-ball game as Bader was hit by a pitch, was sacrificed to second by Sosa, moved to third on a single by Stott and scored on a sacrifice fly by Brandon Marsh for the final margin to give the Phillies the sweep of the Rangers, who had won 12 of their previous 14 at home. It was also the seventh win in nine games for the Phillies.
“It was a good series,” Thomson said. “This is a good club and they’ve been playing well, especially at home. I thought we played very well. The first inning there was a potential double-play ball, a ball that dropped between our middle infielders and Bader. But other than that, I thought we played extremely well.”
As for Wheeler, worry doesn’t seem to be overcoming the manager a little bit.
“I’m not concerned,” he said. “They’re working on some stuff and he just looks a little bit out of sync. The velocity’s not there but his secondary stuff was good, you got a lot of whiff, seven strikeouts. He just looks like he’s out of sync, that’s all.”
All in all, the Phillies couldn’t have written up this weekend any better than it played out.
