Wheeler ‘battles’ in final exhibition start

PHILADELPHIA » In his final exhibition start against another major-league team Sunday, Zack Wheeler gave the Phillies a minimum of reasons to celebrate.

The high-priced free-agent right-hander, who will be the Phillies’ No. 2 starter, struck out four but allowed four hits and two runs in a 5-1 loss to the Baltimore Orioles. Wheeler unloaded 86 pitches in 4.1 innings, 48 for strikes.

“We were five ups and downs or whatever, 85, 80 (pitches) or whatever was our goal,” manager Joe Girardi said of Wheeler. “His arm strength was good. His breaking ball wasn’t as sharp tonight, but obviously he battled through it. He kept us in the game.”

Wheeler, who was unavailable after the game to talk about his so-so exhibition outing, was touched for a secondinning home run by Pedro Severino. Then in the fourth, Hanser Alberto slapped an RBI single for a 2-0 Orioles lead.

The Phillies finally got one back on a Bryce Harper RBI single in the seventh. It was all Baltimore after that off a variety of mostly minor league Philadelphia-side pitchers, with home runs by Cedric Mullins to lead off the eighth inning and Pat Valaika in the top of the 10th ... only because the Phillies wanted to give the Orioles an extra at-bat.

“The interesting thing is it feels fairly normal now, what we’re doing,” Girardi said. “I don’t think it’s something totally strange now, because we’ve been doing this for two weeks.

“To me, I thought it went well and it’s good to be playing baseball, I’ll tell you that.”

••• The Phillies will complete their Grapefruit League II season Monday night at 6:05 in Yankee Stadium. Vince Velasquez will get the start.

It will be Girardi’s first visit to Yankee Stadium since 2017.

‘’It will be a little different for me,’’ said Girardi, the former Yankees manager and catcher. ‘’I’ll be going into a different clubhouse. I could probably tell you more about how it feels after tomorrow.”

Right-hander Deivy Garcia will start for New York.

••• The Phillies will open their season Friday against visiting Miami.

Neil Walker played for the Marlins last season, and will offer what he can as a scouting report against likely starter Sandy Alcantara, a 2019 All-Star.

‘’He’s got really good stuff,’’ Walker said. ‘’When his fastball was on, he was ahead, 0-1, 1-2 and in a lot of counts up and down the lineup, He was working his fastball all around the zone, fourseam sinkers, pretty good slider.

‘’You know these guys aren’t going to need a lesson on how to approach him, because of how many times they faced him last year. I just feel that Sandy is one of these guys that you know what you are going to get. If he rotates, especially with an upper-90s fastball and an upper-80s, low90s slider, he can make life tough on most offenses. So you’ve got to be good in the zone.

“You have to take advantage of opportunities, get big traffic on the basepaths and create as many opportunities as you can to score runs.”

••• Though the Marlins were just 57-105 last season, they beat the

Phillies 10 times in 19 tries. How? “I wish that I could tell you,’’ Walker said. ‘’It was just one of those things. Every team that I’ve been on, there’s always been a team in the division that has been somewhat of an Achilles heel for the other side. And it just so happened that the Marlins were a spur in the side of the Phillies.’’

Walker didn’t outwardly criticize the 2019 Phillies’ pitching coach Chris Young. But the Marlins, apparently were pleased by the pitches coming their way.

‘’There were pitchers on this side that were playing into our hitters’ hands,’’ Walker said. ‘’We weren’t built last year on hitting home runs. We were built on getting on base and creating traffic and getting running and stealing a base, things like that. And maybe it was just kind of one of those recipes that was tough on the staff over here.’’

Young has been replaced by Bryan Price this season.

••• NOTES » Jake Arrieta will pitch in an intrasquad game Wednesday. … Zach Eflin will throw a simulated game Thursday. … Roman Quinn was hit on the hand by a pitch Saturday in Washington, but was fine Sunday and will make the trip to New York. … Bryce Harper, Jay Bruce and Andrew McCutchen will not play against the Yankees. … Girardi has not committed to starting Arrieta in the opening series against Miami, and could throw Velasquez behind Aaron Nola and Wheeler. … The game Sunday was the first in Citizens Bank Park since last Sept. 29, a gap of 294 days.