Zack Wheeler Struggles, Offense Comes Back, Duran Blows Save in 9th

For the majority of the season, there have been at least two guarantees: Zack Wheeler dominating and Jhoan Duran being money in the 9th. Last night, both struggled, and the Phillies blew a 2-run lead in the 9th. Hear from Don Mattingly on an update on Wheeler. #RingTheBell #PhiladelphiaPhillies #MLBonX

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Welcome in, ladies and gentlemen, to yet another episode of the 610 podcast. I'm your host, Jay Hollahan. We're back here on this really dreadful Monday evening. Dreadful Monday evening. This this is a real stinger. I mean an absolute stinger tonight by the Philadelphia Phillies. It started off with Zach Wheeler going and taking the mound on long rest. Six days. He got an extra day off. And his velocity was here, there, and everywhere. He started off the night with a two-run lead. Kyle Schwarber walked. Bryce Harper hit a two-run blast. So he has a 2-0 lead to work with. His first pitch of fastball at 94. Okay. His fastball after allowing the leadoff single to Otto Lopez, plays at 94 again. 94. And then all of a sudden it starts to drop off, and his command just wasn't there. He allows two runs in the first. Oddly, you don't see that too much. Now his fastball, after allowing the home run, went up to 95. So it's like, okay, now it's playing a 95. Then it dips back to 94 again. Then a 93. And then, you know, you're kind of sitting there going, what in the world's going on? Then he gives up a homer in the second, and his first pitch in the second inning, a 92 mile per hour fastball. And you're watching the velocity just tick up, tick down. He doesn't have his command. He just looked completely off right away. Griffin Conine hits a solo homer. He walks Sanoha, who then steals second, and then Marcy doubles to make it four to two. Otto Lopez triples. It's now five two. He comes back to get Sowers and Hernandez, and that does it for the second. Now, bottom of the third, he's able to work around a one out single. But his fastball at 92 it's just not he just didn't have his stuff at all. Fires a 91 mile per hour sinker, gets a s gets Sonoha to swing and and miss, but it's a ninety-two, and every single person who's covering the game is sitting there having a cow because they could not believe what they were watching. It was very much like when we would get reports about his minor league games where they're really watching close on the velocity. So naturally, as a fan, in the bottom of the fourth, when you see Kyle Backis come in, and if you're on social media and you see people tweeting about how there's a meeting in the dugout, and they're discussing things and they're talking things over, the pr the brass is in the dugout, all this stuff, and you're just sitting there going, oh no, oh no. We're in the midst of, you know, we're three and six out of the all-star break. Sure, we won yesterday, but our offense has been scuffling our ace down 5'2. I mean, what is going on? Kyle Backis is now pitching. This is unbelievable. We're playing a Marlins team that's lost 12 in a row. You know, all those things are going through your mind. Are they going to make the postseason? What's the rest of the season going to look like? Is this going to is this the second half of the season just going to be a total and utter wash? Because that's what was going through my mind. I mean, to be honest with you. Trust me, it gets even worse as the case as we move forward throughout. Definitely towards the end of this. But you give back his credit. He went out there and he held his own. Went two innings, two big innings. Then in the top of the sixth, Harper leads off with a walk. Marsh crowns out, pushes Harper to second, and then Alec Bohm comes through, 2-1 pitch, slider, puts it center field, 5-3, then Bryson Stott singles to get Bohm to second, so they're going station to station. Then JT Romuto with a fantastic at-bat as they went to get Cade Gibson, and they put in Tyler Zuber. So they go put in Zuber, right-handed pitcher, and JT falls behind 0-2, takes three straight balls, fouls off a fastball, and then puts a then puts the next fastball that is center cut in a right center field and up and over the wall. Unfortunately, up and over the wall because hey, could have been a basis clearing knock right there, and you could have maybe even got more runs out of the setting. As Justin Crawford then would come through on a RBI single. Now, so RBI singles, so Stott scores. JT they hold him up at third, but Hernandez airmails the ball, it then gets lodged underneath uh one of the score score one of those uh sponsorship signs behind home plate, allowing JT to score to make it six-five. Now the Phillies have to mix a match with the bullpen. Jose Alvarado, one, two, three. In his inning, in the seventh. Jonathan Boling comes in. One, two, three for Bolan. Top of the eighth, Stodd hits a triple, JT sacks him up, seven, five Phillies, bottom of the eighth, Kirkering, leadoff single to Liam Hicks. This is where you're going. Oh no, not this again. Not this again. Then he gets Conine to pop out. Sanoha to fly out. Joe Mack to line up. And you're thinking to yourself, we got Duran coming in for the ninth. This is money. Two-run lead. You know, and you're thinking, well, who's he who's he facing? And he's facing 9-1-2. Alright. You gotta go, you gotta start it off with not allowing the nine-hole hitter to get on. And the nine-hole hitter gets on. Marcy, first pitch splitter. He's swinging all the way. Puts it in the center field, puts it past a diving Trey Turner, who again didn't have a good game in the field. Then Otto Lopez, singles, runners at the corners, Lopez still second. You're going, this is Toronto all over again. This is last year against the Mets all over again. He then hits Kyle Stowers to load the bases, and then after what, in my opinion, was an at-bat with Hernandez that just he wins that at-bat with him. The amount of pressure that would have put on the Marlins, if he would have just gotten an out there, the amount of at-bat, maybe the maybe the doubt starts creeping into the Marlins' mind. Now, granted, Xavier Edwards was coming up next anyways, but in my opinion, he gets that out, and you could be in a situation where that's a lot of pressure for a team that's lost 12 straight. And now maybe some doubt starts to creep in. But no, Hernandez hits a two-run single, then puts his arm around his first base coach, you know, basically like as if he just he just hit a go-ahead hit and go-ahead knock. Ties the game at seven. Xavier Edwards bunts to load the bases. Liam Hicks grounds out for a force out at the plate. Griffin Conine, RBI single to win the game. And they drew the infield in on Conine. Now, granted, the infield being drawn in made no sense, but where Conine put the ball, if you're at double play depth, the runs probably would have scored anyways and it wouldn't have mattered. They're probably not turning two unless they're playing to pull with Bryson Stott, and that's just kind of unlucky. The bottom line is, though, if you're Johan Duran, if you're the closer of this team, you gotta go out there and be nails for them in this situation. I understand Miami's looking to break a 12-game losing streak, but you know what? You gotta be able to go out there and get outs. That's the bottom line. You gotta be able to go out there and make sure this team gets the win. You know how big of a struggle it's been. You've been paying attention to the game. You know Wheeler exited the game way earlier than he needed to, as everyone saw tonight. They scratched, they clawed, they got back. The guys ahead of you in the bullpen tonight did their jobs. A rarity. Everyone but Duran, and usually it's everyone aside from Duran that doesn't do their job. He's the only one that ever consistently gets the three outs you need to get. And for the bullpen to just blow up like that or for him to just blow up like that, rather, it's just so disheartening. And I mean it leaves you with such a sick feeling in your stomach, a bad taste in your mouth, and just an overall thought of just, you know what? This team just feels like it's going nowhere. Nowhere. It feels like this was a foregone conclusion in the offseason, and maybe it was just too good to be true, those couple months where they were giving you something to watch, and something for you to actually sit there and go, hey, well, if they had this at the deadline, well, you know, you got your top three starters going well, and if you can just get some sort of offense, if you could scratch a couple runs. And you know what? Here's the thing because of the bullpen being as bad as it's been, Christopher Sanchez, Zach Wheeler, Jesus Lazardo. Uh he can't put Nola in that list at all, but if he was right, he'd be in there as well. They've all had to pitch a lot of innings. And it made me it makes me wonder because first let me let me play you Don Mattingley.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I for me, it looked like it's all as went coming out today, one of those days. You know, you see the velocity right away, 93. That name, you know, you do have a different fast rate quite hard. No, no, it's a tricky general ball. Just now, or when he came out, he was nauseous? After the game, Paul told me I don't know about it. Oh, during the game, we didn't I didn't hear anything about it. Talking to him in between anything is sound like he felt fine, but just what kind of happened.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

So he said Zach seemed fine, just a little nauseous after the game, said there was nothing physical. He said there was nothing physical wrong with him. Now, last year, I don't want to put any type of bad doubt into everyone's minds again, like I had, but he was kind of like, yeah, I mean, everything feels fine physically, I just don't know what the hell is wrong with me. And then lo and behold, he obviously has that blood clot. But Zach Wheeler, in my opinion, has always operated under needing to pitch every five days. If you have to skip the number five starter, you skip the number five starter. Now, would you have wanted to go into tonight's game with Aaron Nole on the mound? No. That's why they pushed Wheeler's start back. But I do tend to wonder if that's why Wheeler was up and down with his velocity tonight, if that was more so the reason because he had to pitch an extra day. I know it sounds crazy. I know I you're probably like, well, that's just an excuse, and you know, it could have just been performance-based or whatever, but I really believe that's what it is. I mean, as much as it's like, well, he's a Cy Yung-esque winner, look at the numbers, there's no way. But honestly, it's either that or as I was alluding to before he had played Jadon, it could be just dead arm. Because of how many innings him and Sanchez have thrown. That was the thing yesterday about Sanchez. I'm like, man, he probably has dead arm. It's just you know, it's it's nothing in terms of and with Sanchez, because of the fact that he's not a power pitcher, it's not so much so it's anything concerning physically, it's just he's thrown a lot of innings, it's just arm fatigue. Which obviously you don't want to see happen, and hopefully it's what I said at first, which is just you gotta have him every five days, which I don't know if that's something with Mattingley that hey he's gotta understand. If you're gonna be the skipper long term, you gotta have him pitch every five days, or if it's and I mean, even then, Zach has a voice, he could go talk to him, I'm sure he has. Caleb Cotham would have let him know. Everyone that's been around the Phillies, the entire roster would be like, dude, he pitches better on five days rest, not an extra day. They would all, I'm sure, understand that and would go to bat for their ace, but this was a loss that leaves you wondering what's gonna come out of this, because they're in a slide, there's no doubt about it. They're three and seven, first ten out of the all-star break. Now, tonight it was Granite, it was good to see the offense come through. It was good to see the offense pick up Zach Wheeler and say, hey, we're gonna go out there and do our part. We're gonna get the ball to the closer. And I mean, uh, tonight. Anyone but Johan Duran. I mean, literally. Literally, anyone but at that point. Hey, hey, Kirkering. Yeah, not literally, but you know, you catch my drift. It's just one of those situations where how is it that the one guy out of the bullpen that you have faith in can't get the job done? It's unexplainable. It really is. And for the Marlins to snap a 12-game losing streak, that's what also just has you sitting there going, man, that that's because you don't want to be the now, it's gonna snap at some point, probably at some point in the series. But to lose like that, you know, come on. To give them motivation heading into the next day with an Aaronola day, come on. Now, the Phillies are still two games up on the Pirates, who beat the Diamondbacks tonight, so they take over third spot. Cardinals, I believe, lost to the Cubs tonight. Uh well, they're 5-3 at the end of the sixth, so I don't want to call that early, but it's 5-3 end of the sixth. And the Nats, they lost to the Blue Jays, um, Padres didn't play, Marlins obviously played, they're now two games out of the wild card. It's you know, again, w why give your opposition any added motivation? And for the Phillies You go out there with Aaronola tomorrow. And if you're Aaronola, you gotta turn back the hands of time, dude. I don't care what you have to do, you have to turn back the hands of time, and your offense has to be there for you. But let's just face it, it's the offense is inconsistent. Now, you could live uh live loosely within consistency. But you cannot live with the poorest defense. That is just a total that that's what will drive you crazy if you're a manager. That will drive you up a wall to see your shortstop have as many errors as Trey Turner has. To see your catcher have an error on the night, and and a catcher like J.T. Romuto. That's just got that's it can't happen. And to see your closer not be able to throw strikes, it can't happen. They'll have to do it again tomorrow, and and they're gonna have to bear down. They're gonna have to bear down, and they are they're gonna have to be stubborn. They're gonna have to just put this one behind them, and they're gonna have to forget about it, be stubborn, and find a way to get a win. Because they need to get on a roll right now. We're at the end of July, and I'm sorry, if I'm Dave Dombrowski, I'm sitting here going, and I I again I've said this before, I don't think it's gonna matter because if it's if in my opinion, if I'm Dave Dombrowski and I think it's gonna be my final year as the president of baseball ops, which I believe it to be for him, I'm not saying I know anything, I'm just putting out an opinion. If I'm Dave Dombrowski, it's my last year, I'm gonna go all in regardless. But to be honest with you, if I'm Preston Mattingley, I'm in his office every day going, Man, you cannot sell off these big assets. We cannot we cannot not have guys for next year. And while I'm sure it'll be great to have a Byron Buxton who said over the weekend he'd be willing to waive his no trade clause, now with the where the twins are at in the wild card race, they're game out. So what does that tell you? But and what it tells me is it's gonna have to be a we can't say no to it type of deal, and the Phillies don't have can't say no to a type of deal players. And, you know, you gotta kind of wonder as well if they're willing to deal with Buxton with where they are. Number one, what does that say about the twins? But B, what does that say more so about Buxton? I mean, what are we talking about here? But folks, tomorrow's a new day. And or today's a new day, depending upon when you're listening to this. So thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time, hopefully, in a much better mood.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

I'm just feeling home. Come on, baby, hold me.