Phillies Blueprint: Wheeler shoves, Schwarber homers, Bullpen shuts the door
Zack Wheeler, seven and a third innings of one-run ball. Kyle Schwarber, a first-inning homer for the fifth straight game. Alvarado gets out of a jam in the eighth. Duran closes it in the ninth. Phillies win 2-1 at Fenway Park.
That’s Phillies baseball in its purest form. Dominant starting pitching, a home run to score, and a bullpen that slams the door. This is what the roster was built to do. This is what we’ve been waiting to see since Opening Day. Tuesday night in Boston was the blueprint executed to perfection.
Two runs. Five hits. Didn’t matter. When Wheeler is dealing like that, you don’t need the offense to put up a crooked number. You need one swing from Schwarber, a ground-rule double from Stott, and pitching that makes the other lineup look stupid for seven-plus innings. That’s the formula. That’s always been the formula. The Phillies spent the first month of the season forgetting who they were. They’re remembering now.
Zack Wheeler is BACK
Less than eight months after thoracic outlet syndrome surgery. Nineteen days before his 36th birthday. Wheeler walked into Fenway and pitched like a man who wanted to be anywhere but the mound because he was finishing innings so fast there was nothing left to do.
16 pitches through the first three innings. 59 through six. Eight or fewer pitches in four separate innings. He faced one batter over the minimum through six frames because Turner and Stott turned double plays behind him in the second and third.
The fastball hit 96.1 mph and sat at 95.1. Six hits allowed, all singles. Zero walks. Four strikeouts. He took a shutout into the seventh before the Red Sox strung three singles together for their only run. He left in the eighth to an ovation from the Phillies fans scattered throughout the crowd of 36,795.
On the road. At Fenway Park. Getting cheered by your own fans in someone else’s building because you just dominated their lineup for seven innings. That’s what it looks like when the ace is back.
Four starts since the return. Four Phillies wins. Quality starts in each of the last three with five runs allowed over 19 2/3 innings. The questions about Wheeler post-surgery are dead. The velocity is climbing every start. The command never left. The efficiency on Tuesday was the best he’s shown all season. This is the Wheeler the Phillies are paying for and he’s delivering every fifth day.
He’s won both of his career starts at Fenway and allowed two runs in 14 1/3 innings in that building. Boston has no answer for him.
Kyle Schwarber Tied a Franchise Record
First inning. Jovani Moran on the mound. Schwarber jumped on it and sent it out of Fenway for his 17th homer of the season. Five straight games with a home run. That ties the Phillies’ franchise record. He’s the seventh player in team history to do it.
The Major League record is eight straight, shared by three players including Mattingly, who did it in 1987 with the Yankees. Mattingly said he wasn’t a pure power hitter. He just got hot. Schwarber is a pure power hitter who is also hot. That’s a terrifying combination for every pitcher on the schedule and the Phillies are riding it for everything it’s worth.
Schwarber at Fenway is a cheat code. Seven homers in 93 at-bats. A .344 average in 27 games at the old ballpark. He played there in 2021 with the Red Sox and clearly left a piece of himself in that building. The short porch in right was designed for a left-handed hitter with his kind of pull power. Every time Schwarber steps into the box at Fenway, the right fielder takes three extra steps back and prays.
Remember the eight consecutive strikeouts to start May in Miami? The stretch where he looked completely lost and couldn’t make contact with anything? That was two weeks ago. Now he’s tied a franchise record and leads the majors in home runs. That’s the Schwarber experience. The lows make you want to scream. The highs make you forget the lows ever happened.
The Bullpen Slammed the Door
Alvarado came in with a runner on first and one out in the eighth. The defense got shaky behind him but he escaped with the tying run stranded on third.
Duran closed the ninth for the save, recording the final two outs with runners on base. Duran being back and throwing 100 mph in the ninth inning changes everything about how these games feel in the late innings. There’s a closer back there now. A real one. The Phillies can hand a lead to the bullpen and feel confident it’s going to hold.
That’s the whole equation. Wheeler goes seven-plus. The bullpen bridges to Duran. Schwarber hits a bomb somewhere in between. Two runs is enough when the pitching is this good. One run might have been enough Tuesday night with the way Wheeler was carving through the Boston lineup.
11-3 Under Mattingly. Two Games Under .500. This Is Who the Phillies Are.
The Phillies were 10 games under .500 when Mattingly took over. They’re 20-22 now. Two games under. Eleven wins in fourteen games. Nine quality starts from the rotation in those fourteen games. The team that couldn’t buy a quality start for the first month of the season has now gotten them in two-thirds of the games under Mattingly.
Tuesday night was the first real test against quality competition. The Marlins, Athletics, and Rockies are not the Red Sox. Fenway Park is not loanDepot Park. Sonny Gray and the Boston rotation aren’t the bargain bin starters the Phillies have been facing for two weeks.
This was a legitimate road game against a legitimate opponent and the Phillies won it the way they’re supposed to win it. Pitching and power. That’s the identity. That’s the blueprint. That’s what they built this roster to do.
Painter takes the ball Wednesday night against Sonny Gray. If the Phillies can get a competent start from Painter and take the series in Boston, the narrative around this team changes completely.
Two weeks ago they were a dead team walking. Now they’re two games under .500 with the best starting pitching in baseball and a left fielder leading the league in home runs.
This is how the Phillies were built. Wheeler deals. Schwarber goes deep. Hand it to the bullpen. Win the game. It took five weeks longer than it should have to start seeing it. Better late than never.
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I’m not convinced and will never be, even if we made the playoffs we never deliver and bats get cold every year. What’s worse Dumbroski is going to keep his job and is slowly getting out the hot seat.