Game Recap: Wheeler Does It All For Mets in Rout of Phillies, 9-0

The Mets routed the Phillies by a score of 9-0 at Citi Field on Tuesday night behind a brilliant game from Zack Wheeler. (Box Score)

Pitching

Zack Wheeler got the ball for the Mets today and he has been looking more and more like second half-Zack with each start.

His first inning, he gave up a one-out single to J.T. Realmuto. With Bryce Harper up, Wheeler threw him four straight 99 MPH fastballs before throwing a splitter with major drop to strike him out. Rhys Hoskins struck out a 82 MPH curveball right after Wheeler blew a 99 MPH fastball right by him.

Maikel Franco led off the second inning with a single and then Wheeler decided enough was enough. Wheeler started a streak of strike outs beginning with Phil Gosselin. He got a diet of fastballs before Wheeler threw a splitter that fooled him quite poorly. Zach Eflin was the next victim to end the inning. The poor pitcher never had a shot.

Roman Quinn was caught looking at a 97 MPH fastball with movement. Andrew McCutchen was up in the count 3-1 before looking at a 99 MPH fastball followed by a curveball with a spin of 2,806 RPMs (H/T to David Adler). J.T. Realmuto fell victim to Wheeler’s splitter of doom after getting a diet of hard fastballs.

Wheeler took care of Harper with a Harvey type strategy against him. He beat him up and away with heat. Rhys Hoskins was his seventh straight strikeout victim and he got caught looking at a 99 MPH fastball that came back into the strike zone.

With two outs in the fourth, Maikel Franco stopped the streak with a double to right field. Cesar Hernandez followed with a single to left field but Jeff McNeil came up firing and Maikel Franco is not fleet of foot. As a result, McNeil threw him out at the plate by a mile.

Then Zack Wheeler went back to striking out Phillies. He threw a splitter to Mitch Walding which he managed to foul off but followed it up with a 98 MPH fastball up in the zone. He proceeded to make easy work of Roman Quinn immediately after that.

Wheeler began the sixth with 81 pitches. He retired McCutchen with a ground out but gave up another hit to Realmuto. Despite the high pitch count, Wheeler buckled in and got two quick outs from Harper and Hoskins to give him a shot at the seventh inning.

Fortunately for Wheeler and the Mets, the seventh took Wheeler all of seven pitches. He got a fly out from Franco, groundout from Hernandez, and ground out from Gosselin. His final line read: 7 IP, 5 H, 11 K.

Luis Avilan got the eighth inning for the Mets. He pitched a 1-2-3 inning with a couple of strikeouts.

Jacob Rhame pitched a scoreless ninth inning thanks to a double play he induced.

Offense

The Mets offense got rolling in the second inning. Wilson Ramos walked to lead off the inning and Luis Guillorme recorded a single with two-outs. Zack Wheeler proceeded to line the first pitch he saw into right field for a two-run double. Brandon Nimmo hit a ball through Cesar Hernandez’s legs for a third Mets run.

The Mets got a baserunner in the third inning courtesy of Michael Conforto but could not do anything with it.

In the fourth, Zack Wheeler decided to get things done on his own with a solo home run with two-outs in the inning. It was his third RBI of the night and he became the first pitcher to hit a ball 100 MPH and throw it 100 MPH.

The Mets broke it open in the fifth inning. Robinson Cano singled with one-out. Conforto then singled as well to bring up Wilson Ramos. Ramos tapped a ball in front of the plate which put runners on second and third for McNeil.

Rather than face him though, the Phillies walked McNeil to pitch to Todd Frazier with the bases loaded. The pitcher, Nick Anderson, looked wild and went to a 3-0 count on Frazier. He threw a get me over fastball to make it 3-1. He tried the same pitch again but Frazier was sitting on it and hit a grand slam to left field. His first homer of the season.

In the sixth, Juan Lagares walked and both Robinson Cano and Michael Conforto singled with two-outs in the inning. Wilson Ramos proceeded with a RBI single to make it a 9-0 Mets lead.

Aside from Frazier and Wheeler, the other notable performer’s were Conforto and Cano. Cano went 2-for-4 tonight. Conforto went 2-for-4 with a walk and made hard outs.