Phillies

Zack Wheeler Just Doesn’t Have it

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Aug 25th, 2026 · 9:30 AM EDT

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Unless you’re the 1972 Miami Dolphins, all winning streaks must come to an end.

For the Phillies, it’ll go down as a nine-game streak after they were thumped 9-2 by the Mariners in Seattle on Monday night.

Zack Wheeler had nothing from the jump, giving up two first inning home runs and shipping five runs right off the bat. He lasted four innings, giving up nine hits, eight earned runs, walking five batters, and striking out four. He threw 103 pitches, 63 for strikes, and shouldn’t have come back to start the 5th.

He hasn’t been himself going back to July 27th in Miami:

• August 24th at SEA: loss, 4.0 IP, 9 H, 8 R, 8 ER, 5 BB, 4 K, 4 HR
• August 18th vs. MIA: no decision, 5.0 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 4 BB, 7 K, 1 HR
• August 12th at STL: loss, 5.0 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 0 HR
• August 7th vs. TOR: loss, 5.1 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 5 BB, 6 K, 1 HR
• August 2nd at BAL (rain-shortened): no decision, 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 3 K, 0 HR
• July 27th at MIA: no decision, 3.0 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 5 ER, 1 BB, 6 K, 2 HR

Combine all of that and it’s good for a 8.51 ERA and a 1.93 WHIP with 23 earned runs in 24.1 innings. He’s allowed 31 hits, 16 walks, and 18 home runs.

As for what’s going wrong, the velocity still seems to be there. The four seamer is hitting around 94.8 mph during these six starts, and it averaged out at 95.2 in his 16 prior starts. Some of these pitches are just flattening out and batters are pounding them, hard. Walks are way up, too. He’s a guy who typically walks 1-3 guys a game, and he’s been above that average three times this month already. Throw in a couple of multi-homer games and it just doesn’t look like Wheeler out there on the mound.

I asked the in-house A.I. to look through the Sportradar data and comb for some other tidbits that might help explain what’s going on:

• Four-seam fastball: Whiff percentage on his four-seamer plummeted from 31.4% to 21.3%. He decreased 4-seam usage from 36.0% down to 30.5%.
• Sweeper: His sweeper whiff rate tumbled from 40.0% down to 25.0%.
• Cutter: average velocity lost over a full mph, declining from 91.0 mph to 89.9 mph (max velo fell from 93.7 mph to 92.1 mph).
• Sinker: He threw more sinkers (usage up from 15.3% to 18.0%), but its strike rate cratered from 68.8% down to 56.7%, driving much of his walk problems.
• Splitter: Splitter strike percentage fell from 62.9% down to 54.9%, with whiffs dropping from 46.4% to 40.5%.

At this point you’re thinking that Wheeler needs a break. Maybe the ‘ole phantom IL stint, though he conceivably is dealing with something that is not phantom at all. Maybe we’ll find out. Otherwise, we could use a couple of Nestor Cortes starts to spell Wheeler. Give the man a rest ahead of the playoffs. Thankfully we’ve got Aaron Nola and Andrew Painter in form, which feels crazy to say considering how this season began.