Previous discussions of the Phillies utilizing a 6-man rotation when Aaron Nola returned can be thrown out the window. Starting pitcher Zack Wheeler has been placed on the 15-day injured list with a blood clot near his right shoulder the club announced Saturday.
Wheeler, who leads the majors with 195 strikeouts, is currently without a timetable to return, and could miss extensive time. Philadelphia didn’t provide much information, keeping things limited to a one sentence announcement on social media.
“Following today’s game, the Phillies placed right-hander pitcher Zack Wheeler on the 15-day injured list with a Right Upper Extremity Blood Clot.”
The 35 year old previously had a start pushed back following “shoulder soreness” after his outing against the Detroit Tigers on August 2nd. Evidently, additional testing revealed a clot which will require attention to ensure it doesn’t turn into a larger medical issue.
In his most recent outing against the Washington Nationals, Wheeler went 5 innings, giving up 2 earned runs, and striking out 6. However, despite the 6-2 win, his outing continued a concerning trend of a decrease in velocity.
Speaking to reporters after his outing against the Rangers prior to Friday, Wheeler said “Honestly, it’s been a while,” with regards to the shoulder issue. “It finally just got to that point to where we wanted to go get an image of it so we could treat, specifically, what needed to be treated and not just guess.”
“I’m not concerned. It’ll come back,” Wheeler added regarding his velocity issues. An MRI following the Detroit series didn’t reveal any structural issues in his throwing shoulder, though it would appear as though the culprit has now been found.
Wheeler is currently 10-5 on the season with a 2.71 ERA and a 0.935 WHIP. The perennial Cy Young contender is the 2nd Phillies player in the last 24 hours to go down with an injury, joining closer Jhoan Duran who will miss some time after taking a comebacker to the foot in his most recent outing.
Philadelphia will look to wrap up their series against the Nationals on Sunday at 11:35am ET.
Photo: Keith Allison. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.