Zack Wheeler heads up, and the bats are getting hot as the Phillies take the series against the Rockies

Written by Phil Sheridan

Every baseball team leaves spring training fully confident that it’s a good team starting a good season. Many of them find out they are very wrong before the end of April.

Phillies are pretty sure they’re a good team. After going to the World Series and adding Trea Turner to their lineup, they knew they had a chance to be special. As they reached the last week in April, that perception began to match reality.

The Phillies won their third straight game Sunday, with a 9-3 victory over the Colorado Rockies. This is their first three-game winning streak this season. They won three of four and six of nine. After starting the season 0-4, the Phillies were 11-12, just one game under .500.

They are not where they want to be, but they are going in the right direction.

Sunday’s game looked just as club chairman Dave Dombrowski and manager Rob Thompson imagined it when they were talking about the off-season.

Zach Wheeler, their starting teammate, pitched like an ace. Well, mostly. Wheeler was a hit to start the game, scoring seven of the first 10 Rockies he faced. Wheeler pitched in six innings, five of which are exactly what his team needed from him.

the fourth? Well, the less you talk about it the better. Wheeler gave up three singles, walking one batter and striking out the other. The Rockies briefly took a 3-2 lead without Wheeler hitting hard.

“I don’t know what it is,” Wheeler said of his apparent lack of focus on that run. He came back and scored a fifth and sixth, finishing with 11 goals. It was Wheeler’s tenth game as a Phillie with double-digit strikeouts.

The Rockies swung and missed 23 Wheeler pitches, a career high for a veteran right man.

“His stuff was really good today,” Thompson said. “The fourth inning took a lot of pitches. But he got it back.”

When Thompson and Dombrowski were planning the 2023 season, they saw three solid rounds of bulls. And that’s what they got. Three relievers, each allowing at least one hit. Luis Ortiz loaded the bases in the ninth on two singles and a throwing error by shortstop Trea Turner.

But Ortiz made Jurickson Profar, whose single started on Wheeler’s troubles in the fourth, fly to shallow left, then hit Ryan McMahon to end the game. It was Colorado’s 16th strikeout of the game.

Jose Alvarado scored two goals in his eighth performance. Alvarado walked Matt Chapman in Toronto on Sept. 21 of last year. Since then, Alvarado has not issued a rule on balls. He faced 55 batters, striking out 32 (58.2%) of them. Rockies Ryan McMahon and Alan Trejo were each hit third by Alvarado, whose pitches hovered around 98 to 99 mph.

After Wheeler’s rough fourth gave Colorado a 3–2 advantage, the Phillies retook the lead by scratching two runs in the bottom of the inning. Two walks and one hit by Nick Castellanos established a couple of player-selection RBIs, and that was it.

The Phillies hit five runs in the seventh and eighth thanks to home runs from Payson Stott and Brandon Marsh. The Phillies scored nine runs on just eight hits.

“Five walks, four home runs,” said Thompson, summing up his insults. “This is going to lead to some running.”

good offer. Beating at the right time. Three-game winning streak. Don’t look now, but the Phillies are finally looking like the good team they’ve come to expect.

“We feel like we’re a good team,” Stott said.

He didn’t get any arguments.