Phillies blew Zack Wheeler’s chance for revenge in best game of his career

The New York Mets acquired Zack Wheeler when he was a pitching prospect in the San Francisco Giants system in a deal that sent Carlos Beltran to the Bay Area. Wheeler's Mets tenure featured its ups and downs as he showed flashes of brilliance but was inconsistent in a Mets uniform and also missed substantial time due to injury.

Wheeler was hurt when the Mets were making their run to the World Series in 2015. Rather than let Wheeler be with the team, the Mets forced him to buy his own postseason tickets throughout that whole run. That was something Wheeler never forgot.

Despite those flashes of brilliance, he showed as a Met and Wheeler's desire to return to the Mets as a free agent, Mets GM Brodie Van Wagenen opted to let him go to their NL East rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies.

"Our health and performance department, our coaches all contributed and helped him parlay two good half-seasons over the last five years into a $118 million. I'm proud of what our group was able to help him accomplish. I'm happy he was rewarded for it. Players deserve to be rewarded when they perform well. More than anything else, I'm thrilled with the pitching staff we have."

As it turns out, Wheeler was a whole lot better than Van Wagenen thought he was. He has been one of the best pitchers in baseball since inking his deal with the Phillies and pitched so well to the point that he was extended prior to the 2024 campaign.

Wheeler has been dominant in the regular season, but he's been even better in October. He's led the Phillies' rotation in each of the last two postseasons and was primed to do the same in 2024. What makes the 2024 postseason different for Wheeler, in particular, is that he had a chance to get revenge against the same Mets team that let him go.

The right-hander was able to get that revenge and then some, turning in arguably the best start of his career to date. He pitched seven scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and striking out nine. He generated an absurd 30 swings and misses in his masterpiece.

The only issue with the game for Philadelphia was that they were only ahead by one run by the time Wheeler departed. The bullpen then proceeded to waste no time to blow the game.

For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray’s work on The Baseball Insiders podcast, subscribe to The Moonshot, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.

Phillies waste no time ruining Zack Wheeler revenge gem vs. Mets

The way Wheeler was going, the 1-0 game felt like it was 8-0. Jeff Hoffman is a really good reliever, but he's not Wheeler. Making the change from Wheeler to Hoffman had to be done because of Wheeler's pitch count, but it also gave New York some sense of hope. They took advantage of it.

The Mets hit two singles and drew a walk against Hoffman to tie the game at one and put a pair of runners in scoring position with Brandon Nimmo coming up next. Philadelphia turned to Matt Strahm, a left-hander, to face the left-handed hitting Nimmo, but New York's outfielder came through, punching a go-ahead single to left.

A sacrifice fly followed by two singles and another sacrifice fly turned a 3-1 game into a 5-1 game. Immediately after pulling Wheeler, the Mets went on to score five runs to steal all the momentum Philadelphia had. They'd win the game 6-2.

This is a particularly damaging loss for Philadelphia, not only because they lost a home game, but they lost a game that saw their ace be in complete and total command. He could not have been better. For Wheeler to do what he did against a red-hot Mets team that he was clearly out for revenge against with only one run of support was incredible to witness.

It's unfortunate that his teammates couldn't pick him up.