Philadelphia Phillies manager Rob Thomson raised more than a few eyebrows with his decision to pull starter Zack Wheeler in the sixth inning of Game 6. Even Wheeler himself was surprised when it happened.
“Honestly, it caught me off guard a little bit,” Wheeler told reporters after the Phillies’ season-ending loss to the Houston Astros, according to NBC Sports Philadelphia.
He added, “It’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s ultimately Thom’s call, and that’s the call he made.”
Wheeler was cruising early in Saturday’s must-win start, allowing only three baserunners in the first five innings while being staked to a 1-0 lead. But he hit a bit of a speed bump in the sixth when two runners reached base, prompting Thomson to call for Jose Alvarado against Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez. Wheeler had thrown just 70 pitches.
Thomson’s move backfired, as Alvarez crushed a 450-foot three-run homer that held up as the series-clinching blast.
“I thought (Wheeler) still had really good stuff, it wasn’t about that,” Thomson explained, according to Philadelphia-area sportscaster Jeff Skversky. “It was just, I thought the matchup was better with Alvarado on Alvarez at that time.”
