The Philadelphia Phillies’ potential six-man rotation effectively has been trimmed to five after the team announced ace Zack Wheeler will miss the remainder of the season following a diagnosis of venous thoracic outlet syndrome.
With Wheeler now unavailable, the Phillies will look to each remaining starter to elevate their game. That begins on Sunday when left-hander Ranger Suarez takes the mound in the decisive contest of the three-game series versus the visiting Washington Nationals.
It’s hardly gloom and doom for the National League East-leading Phillies, who bounced back from Friday’s 5-4 setback in the series opener to record their fifth win in six outings with a 6-4 triumph in the rematch. Edmundo Sosa belted a three-run homer to highlight a five-run fourth inning on Saturday, and Trea Turner went deep to lead off the fifth for Philadelphia.
Jhoan Duran rebounded from his first blown save with the Phillies on Friday by shutting the door on Saturday.
That victory, however, came hours after the Phillies announced the news on Wheeler.
“We figure that he’ll come back in the six-to-eight-month time period and come back and be the Zack Wheeler of old,” Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said. “That’s what we’ve been told. And unless something unanticipated happens, he’ll be able to come back and pitch like he has before this.”
Suarez (9-6, 3.25 ERA) halted a modest two-game slide on Monday after allowing two runs on four hits while matching a career high with 10 strikeouts in 6 2/3 innings in Philadelphia’s 12-7 home victory over the Seattle Mariners.
Suarez admitted that Wheeler’s health has weighed on the minds of his fellow rotation members.
“Coming into this game (on Monday), I was thinking, maybe that’s what we’re all thinking as a starting staff,” Suarez said through an interpreter. “We lost a great pitcher, we lost a great player, and we just have to perform as best as we can so we can try to fill those shoes.”
Suarez, who turns 30 on Tuesday, is 7-2 with a 4.47 ERA in 56 1/3 innings over 16 career appearances (nine starts) versus Washington.
Right-hander Jake Irvin (8-8, 5.30) will provide the opposition in the series finale.
Irvin has struggled mightily this month, going 0-3 with a bloated 9.31 ERA in four starts in August. He yielded six runs for the second straight start on Tuesday against the visiting New York Mets while allowing two homers for the second time in three outings.
Once again, a big inning — in this case, a five-run third versus the Mets — proved to be Irvin’s undoing.
“That’s something that I’m going to talk to the pitching coaches (about),” Nationals interim skipper Miguel Cairo said. “We got to figure out how we can make it so that he can stay away from those bad innings.”
Irvin also permitted six runs in a 7-2 setback in Philadelphia on April 30. He is 0-4 with a 6.10 ERA in 38 1/3 innings over seven career appearances (all starts) against the Phillies.
Luis Garcia Jr. recorded his second three-hit performance against Philadelphia in seven days on Saturday. Garcia belted a homer and an RBI double and CJ Abrams also went deep for the Nationals, who saw their three-game winning streak come to a halt.
–Field Level Media
