On Sunday, Zack Wheeler took the hill and gave the Mets a superb effort, limiting the Reds to just one run in 6.0 innings of work and striking out six along the way. It was by all accounts another great effort from the second year pitcher as he earned his 10th win.
The one part of Wheeler’s game that needs to be fine tuned is his efficiency. He’s letting big innings chip away at his pitch count and has gone seven full innings in just one of his last 14 starts. He seems to stall continuously in the 7th inning.
“We’ve reduced the pitch counts — that has to do with how many innings are out there,” Terry Collins told the NY Post’s Mike Puma. “But Zack’s last outing in Miami we didn’t exactly play real good behind him, so his pitch count got up higher than we wanted. But there are certain times they deserve the chance to get through an inning once in a while.”
Wheeler has thrown 325 pitches over his last three starts. As the season begins to wind down it is no surprise that the team is keeping tabs on one of their prized young aces.
“We’ve got to finish the season with this guy healthy. He’s shown way too much promise here and we cannot go into next season with a sore shoulder or sore elbow” Collins added.
Wheeler is taking this season in stride. With Matt Harvey set to return in the spring, the two could team up to form a formidable duo at the top of the Mets rotation.
“I feel fine body-wise. Who could ask for anything more, I guess” Wheeler said after the game.
Keeping Wheeler healthy heading into the offseason is now the priority for Collins and the rest of the Mets front office.
Thoughts from Joe D.
As far as I’m concerned Zack Wheeler has crossed over into the untouchable category. I still see his name pop up in various offseason trade speculation to acquire a bat. No thanks. Unless it’s for Mike Trout or Giancarlo Stanton and you all know that’s not happening.
In his last 13 starts, Wheeler is 7-1 with a 2.21 ERA in 81.1 innings pitched. Opposing batters are hitting just .215 during that span. Overall, he is 10-9 this season with a 3.38 ERA.
Someone brought up a good idea in the threads last week, and that is locking up Wheeler through his arbitration years and perhaps even buy out a year of his free agency. Sort of like we did with Jon Niese. It could save us some big bucks down the road.
