If you want a concise recap of this one, we can keep it simple:

On Saturday afternoon, Zack Wheeler stepped onto the mound at Citizens Bank Park. The Braves never had a chance. Zack Wheeler also stepped into the batter’s box at Citizens Bank Park. Again, the Braves never had a chance.

Now for the details — talk about a guy coming out hot.

That’s exactly what Wheeler did in the first inning. A total of 10 four-seam fastballs came out of Wheeler’s right hand in the first. None of those 10 pitches registered below 98.1 mph. Five of his offerings lit the gun at 99.1 mph or better.

He set the tone immediately by blowing away Ronald Acuna Jr. up in the zone at 99.5 mph to record the game’s first out.

It was on from the jump.

While his fastball velocity “dipped” after the first inning, consistently sitting around 97-98 mph, Wheeler’s mastery of the Atlanta lineup continued for six more innings. Notable, and where things really get interesting projecting forward, was Wheeler’s ability to generate swings and misses against the Braves. Atlanta hitters whiffed at 16 of Wheeler’s 90 total pitches.

The 17.8% swinging strike rate he produced on Saturday afternoon was up dramatically from the 10.8% he put up over 11 starts a season ago.

Given Wheeler entered 2021 with a 10% swinging strike rate over his first six seasons, it’s unlikely he will sustain such a jump. But even if the swing-and-miss frequency ticks up into the 12-13% range, which remains possible given his plus-velocity, Wheeler’s game could reach a different level.

In the fifth, he struck out the side by finishing off Austin Riley with a 2-2 slider to record his seventh strikeout of the afternoon.

At that point, Wheeler had faced just one batter over the minimum, retiring 11 consecutive Braves hitters.

He would go on to retire the final 17 batters faced before departing after the seventh inning with 90 pitches (62 strikes) to his credit. He finished the day with double-digit strikeouts for the first time in a Phillies uniform.

Phillies manager Joe Girardi elected to end Wheeler’s day at that point, taking a cautious approach early in the season.

“You know, Zack is a power guy and it’s a guy that pitches to contact because he’s got so much power and he’s got so much movement on that sinker, so that’s why he’s able to get deep in games,” Girardi said. “Had it been a little bit later in the season, I wouldn’t have taken him out, but seeing that it’s his first start, the up-downs, I got a little nervous even with him going out in the seventh.”

Usually, this is about the point in a game story where I pivot to another player.

But wait, there’s more!

Wheeler, who had just one at-bat this spring, would then also drop the hammer at the plate.

With the Phillies’ offense struggling to get anything going against Braves starter Charlie Morton, Wheeler took matters into his own hands in the fifth inning by delivering a two-out RBI single to get his team on the board.

“You pay attention to game situations,” Wheeler said. “You take pride in it. If you’re going up there, you might as well try, so I take pride in it and was just trying to move the runners and keep the inning going.”

That he did.

Rhys Hoskins followed two batters later with a two-run double that gave Wheeler what was, truthfully, some unnecessary breathing room.

However, Wheeler still wasn’t done. An inning later, he would bring home another run with a two-out double to put the Phillies up by a 4-0 margin.

“I’m just looking fastball. Pitchers are going to see fastballs,” Wheeler said. “I know it sounds simple and kind of dumb, but it’s the truth. You’re going to see a fastball and you’ve just got to be ready to hit it.”

His performance on Saturday afternoon was reminiscent of a 12U Little League game in which the starting pitcher goes out and shoves, goes off at the plate, and gets a bunch of fist bumps from his teammates (and jealous stares from his teammates’ dads) at Pizza Hut after the game.

Are baseball players still going to Pizza Hut postgame, or is that a 90s thing?

 

Anyway, here’s Girardi on Wheeler’s performance:

“Golly, was he good today,” he said. “He’s a really good hitting pitcher and to have two two-out RBIs. Huge. I don’t know if you can say enough great things about what he did today.”

Once Wheeler exited, the Phillies’ revamped bullpen continued its spotless start to the season. Archie Bradley and Hector Neris, who struck out the side in the ninth, teamed up for two scoreless innings to finish the combined one-hit shutout.

Of note, Phillies pitching has held an Atlanta offense that finished second in runs per game a season ago scoreless in 18 of 19 innings to start the season.

Through two games, the bullpen has recorded 16 outs without allowing a run. A season after a historically poor performance, it’s way too soon to know where this group will eventually stack up, but a 0.00 ERA through 5 1/3 innings isn’t a bad place to start.

The Phils will go for the season-opening series sweep of the Braves tomorrow afternoon. Zach Eflin gets the ball against Atlanta’s Ian Anderson, he of the “skim milk” 2016 MLB Draft.