From Paul Casella of Phillies.com<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s still [like] Spring Training for him,\u201d Thomson said. \u201cThat\u2019s not gonna be his last [rehab] outing. \u2026 There\u2019s at least one more after that. But I\u2019m expecting the velo to go up as he gets more pitches under his belt and more innings under his belt, and then go up again when the adrenaline really hits when he gets here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The veteran right-hander was the Phillies Opening Day pitcher in 2024 and 2025, but opened this season on the IL. He made a rehab start on Friday for Triple-A Lehigh Valley, allowing five runs over three innings, giving up four hits, and striking out one.<\/p>\n
The Phillies\u2019 starting rotation has been a strength of the team so far this season, even without Wheeler. Philadelphia entered Sunday with a 4.11 ERA from starting pitchers through nine games,\u00a0with Cristopher S\u00e1nchez leading the staff with a 0.79 ERA through two starts.<\/p>\n
Taijuan Walker\u2019s Struggles and the Looming Roster Move<\/p>\n
It’s likely that when Wheeler is ready to return, he will replace\u00a0Taijuan Walker in the rotation, who has given up 11 runs in 9.2 innings pitched so far in two starts.<\/p>\n
The Best Philly Athletes Age 25 or Younger<\/p>\n
Philadelphia has some great young athletes right now, from All-Star Tyrese Maxey to two first-round draft picks on the Eagles Defensive Line (Jordan Davis and Jalen Carter).\u00a0In honor of the Philly Sports Youth Movement, here is my ranking of the Top Ten Philadelphia Professional Athletes who are 25 years old or younger:<\/p>\n
Gallery Credit: Josh Hennig\/Townsquare Media<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Phillies\u00a0starting pitcher Zack Wheeler will make at least one more rehab start before returning to the rotation,\u00a0the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2397],"tags":[4753,5,4,144,25,4216,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-667390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-phillies","8":"tag-articles","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","13":"tag-philadelphiaphillies","14":"tag-phillies"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116360733964451802","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}