WHEEL’S A LITTLE FLAT
Hard to expect more from Zack after two years away
It was always fantasy to think Zack Wheeler could come back after missing two full seasons and not pay a price of some kind. But the Mets were allowed to dream, especially after rolling out such dominant pitching in the first three games of the season. After all, Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom and Matt Harvey allowed a total of two runs in their three combined starts, each of them going at least six innings for a combined 0.69 ERA.
For that matter, Harvey breezed into the seventh inning, not by blowing the Braves away with his once-vaunted fastball so much as by commanding all of his pitches, and well, he was coming back from surgery, too. So why not Wheeler? That was the Mets’ thinking, especially after he convinced them he was ready with that impressive start late in spring training. But, in truth, he really wasn’t ready for this.
It’s not just that Wheeler missed all that time after having Tommy John surgery in March of 2015. His spring training was also delayed a bit after he experienced soreness in the same elbow early in camp, and he made only three starts in Grapefruit League games.
So nobody really could have been surprised when Wheeler, pitching in a game for the first time since Sept. 25, 2014 — or 925 days if you’re keeping track — got knocked around Friday, giving up five runs on six hits while pitching four innings, in a 7-2 loss to the Marlins at Citi Field.
As Terry Collins admitted before the game, “I think we’re really in the dark about the command of his pitches and the durability of his arm.”
That didn’t sound promising, and after Wheeler raised hopes by striking out two Marlins’ hitters in a 1-2-3 first inning, his start went downhill quickly, as he gave up three runs in the second inning and two more in the third.
Afterward, Collins put a positive spin on the start, saying the bitterly cold night was surely a factor that robbed Wheeler of command, and making the point that this is only the beginning for Wheeler.
“As I told Zack, it’s Step One,’’ Collins said. “It’s the first step in a long road back. We’ve still got some work to do but I think he’s going to get better.”
Wheeler’s start did offer hope, to be sure. His fastball was clocked several times at 97 mph, and he racked up four strikeouts, while issuing only one walk.
However, the 26-year-old righthander was in the middle of the plate way too often, with his breaking stuff as well as his fastball, and in the big leagues you pay for that, no matter the fastball velocity.
So Wheeler was disappointed. He admitted he’d thought of this night on many a lonely day in Port St. Lucie doing his rehab, and, he said with a wry smile, it didn’t go as planned.
“I wanted to come out and dominate, put my foot down and say ‘I’m back,’” Wheeler said. “It’s not what I wanted. But it’s not hard to fix. I just didn’t have command of my off-speed stuff, and they were able to sit on my fastball.”
Command has always been an issue for Wheeler, even before his injury, which is why his pitch count too often forced him out of games early. But he improved significantly in the second half of 2014, exciting the Mets again about his star potential.
So the question now is how much of Friday night was rust, and perhaps even the emotion of finally pitching in a big-league game again, and how much of it was an indication that his lack of command will always be a problem for him?
Certainly it’s going to take at least several starts before anyone can start to draw any real conclusions about what Wheeler can do this season.
And obviously the Mets have to hope he progresses quickly, because without Steven Matz and Seth Lugo, who are both sidelined with elbow injuries, Wheeler is in the rotation for the foreseeable future.
Maybe it will work out fine. You can see the stuff is there.
Or maybe the Mets are wishing they could have stuck to their plan of a month ago to leave Wheeler in extended spring training, have him continue to fine-tune his pitching while also saving some innings, since they’ve said they’ll limit him to somewhere in the 125-130 range.
They changed their minds after Matz went down, and as it turned out, the injury to Lugo essentially would have forced their hand on Wheeler anyway, because they weren’t willing to gamble on someone like Rafael Montero.
The bottom line, then, is that this start was built on a lot of hope, and surely Wheeler will get better.
As he was getting banged around on Friday night, however, you couldn’t help but think the Mets’ first instinct, to protect and preserve him for later in the season, was the right way to go.