In a battle of aces, Zack Wheeler outpitched Zac Gallen to lead Philly to a 6-1 win Saturday and 3-2 lead in the NLCS.
He prefers to not obsess over pitch selection, game-planning or the tendencies of opposing hitters. The balding 33-year-old is not particularly muscular and looks more like the gangly, tall kid from your high school class than one of the 10 best pitchers in the world.
Wheeler's masterful start, his fourth of this postseason, left no doubt about his status as a true October stopper. There are fewer no-joke starting pitchers than ever before, a product of the sport's reliance on bullpen velocity. Arizona won Game 4 with a carousel of eight different relievers. Wheeler is a dying breed, and he admitted as much in his Friday press conference.
Unlike recent outings in which he cruised through the early innings with hardly a blemish, the Phillies ace allowed baserunners in the first, third, fourth, fifth and sixth. But no Diamondback touched home against Wheeler until Alek Thomas, the hero of Game 5, popped him for a solo smash in the 7th. Wheeler retired the next three batters in quick succession.The Phillies struck early, plating a pair of two-out runs in the top of the first inning against Gallen without recording a hard-hit ball.
The game would stay 2-0 until the top of the sixth, when the third-time-through-the-order boogieman reared its head at Gallen. That messy first inning aside, the Cy Young hopeful looked capable against Philly's homer-happy offense. In his Game 1 start, the long ball had doomed Gallen, but to this point Saturday, he'd succeeded to keep the ball in the park.
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