Zack Wheeler serves up Dodger dingers, another lefty stifles Phillies originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia
LOS ANGELES — The Phillies have been winning lately with a pretty narrow formula.
It has usually come with a homer, or multiple, and a strong starting pitching performance. That recipe has worked during their recent surge, but it is only so sustainable.
And on Friday night at Dodger Stadium, they did not fit that bill in their 4-2 loss to the Dodgers. They got the homer, but not the kind of starting pitching performance they have become used to.
Los Angeles got to Zack Wheeler — the first time in his seven starts since returning from thoracic outlet decompression surgery that he has looked human.
Wheeler went six innings, allowing five hits, four runs and four solo homers. He struck out four and walked one.
He knew he was not sharp.
“I was a little out of whack,” Wheeler said. “Some pitches didn’t get where they needed to be, especially against this kind of lineup. It’s just the combo of being out of whack and pitches not going where I want, but against a good lineup, they’re going to hit it.”
In the first three innings, the Dodgers hit three solo homers against him. Freddie Freeman got him in the first. Max Muncy left the yard in the second. Shohei Ohtani followed with another in the third.
Will Smith added a fourth solo shot against Wheeler in the fifth.
He looked toward the sky after that ball left the park. It was that kind of night.
“It’s baseball,” Wheeler said. “It’s a weird sport when things happen. Sometimes you feel out of whack and you do well. Sometimes you don’t. Just little frustrations, all. Just a good lineup, a good team. You want to come in here and do well against them.
The Dodgers were hitting his misses. Up, middle, down. It did not matter. They kept leaving the yard.
Wheeler’s stuff was there. He had swing-and-miss pitches. His velocities were up. But the thing that makes the Dodgers such a difficult lineup from top to bottom is that they consistently punish mistakes.
Don Mattingly did not think Wheeler was far off. The misses were just loud.
“I didn’t think he was terrible,” Mattingly said. “Just the solo homers.”
Wheeler ended his night with a nine-pitch, scoreless sixth. That was about all he could take from it.
“It was good, feeling like I should, leaving that outing,” Wheeler said. “That was the only good part of it.”
“Besides the four home runs, I felt like I did well. But at the end of the day, I let them up and we lost because of that.”
That damage was too much.
The Phillies were being no-hit by Dodgers lefty Justin Wrobleski through 5 2/3 innings, and their clearest offensive issue showed up again.
They continue to struggle against left-handed starting pitching.
It was a problem under Rob Thomson. It has remained one under Mattingly.
With Friday’s loss, the Phillies are slashing .187/.251/.320 against left-handed starters. If you take out their seven-run showing against Rockies lefty Kyle Freeland on May 9 at Citizens Bank Park, they are at .169/.239/.279.
Mind-boggling, especially compared to recent seasons.
Last year, the Phillies had a .718 OPS in games against left-handed starters. That was not spectacular, and it still pointed to a weakness. In 2024, they had a .807 OPS in those games. In 2023, it was .825.
With a fairly similar personnel group, it has gotten much worse in 2026.
It was exposed again Friday.
Wrobleski did not need to get overly creative. He almost exclusively used two pitches against Phillies hitters: a four-seam fastball and a slider. He used essentially the same mix against lefties and righties.
The plan was there in front of them.
The Phillies still had no answers.
Mattingly pointed to the fastball as the pitch that controlled the night.
“I thought he beat us with a fastball a lot tonight,” Mattingly said. “He was getting ahead in the count. He was on the attack, it seemed like, from the first on.”
Wrobleski’s four-seam fastball, which had averaged 93.7 mph this season, sat at 94.9 mph Friday. He generated a 57 percent swing-and-miss rate with the pitch, threw it for a strike 76 percent of the time and recorded all nine of his strikeouts with it.
None came on any other pitch.
That has been part of the larger trend.
The Phillies have not hit fastballs well when they face left-handed starters. They are batting .193 against all heaters in those spots with a .628 OPS. Somehow, it has been worse against breaking balls, where they have a .364 OPS.
Mattingly did not have a sweeping explanation for the lefty issue. Friday, to him, was more direct.
“We just didn’t get on the fastball,” Mattingly said. “It took us a while to get going with the fastball and trusting what he was doing.”
At 29-28, the Phillies still need to gain ground to fit more comfortably into the National League Wild Card picture. But if they keep getting handled by left-handed starters, that climb becomes tougher.
The Phillies finally broke up the no-hit bid with a Kyle Schwarber solo shot, extending his Major League lead with 22 homers.
Schwarber has been one of their few bright spots against lefties, posting a .987 OPS against southpaws.
He still believes there is more in the lineup than the results have shown.
“I like our offense,” Schwarber said. “I know that the results aren’t there. I think we all have the most confidence in each other.”
Schwarber credited Wrobleski, who kept the Phillies behind in counts for most of the night.
“He had a really good game against us,” Schwarber said. “Felt like he was getting ahead, putting the ball in really good spots the whole game.”
Brandon Marsh helped the Phillies climb back against the Dodgers’ bullpen with a one-out double in the eighth. Steward Berroa, hitting from the left side, followed with his first Phillies hit, an RBI single that cut the deficit to two.
Berroa also made a strong play in right field earlier in the night, tracking a ball near the wall and holding a runner at first.
“He’s an energy guy,” Mattingly said. “He knows what he’s doing out there. It’s not like this is some young kid that hasn’t played a lot of baseball. He’s got a good idea what he’s doing out there.”
They had nothing going in the ninth against Tanner Scott.
Friday was a reminder that the flaws are still there.
Wheeler had his first rough night since returning. The Phillies, who just swept three Padres right-handed starters, were quiet against another left-hander. Against a team like the Dodgers, those two things are hard to overcome.
The Phillies have won plenty of games recently by finding one big swing. Schwarber knows that cannot be the only path.
“We want to keep finding ways to get guys on base and keep trying to find ways to produce runs, not just via home run,” Schwarber said. “We have all the trust in the world that we’re going to find a way to get that done at the end of the day.
