New York Mets: Zack Wheeler is Living Up to his Potential

Zack Wheeler threw 7 innings of shutout baseball in the New York Mets’ win on Saturday night. Wheeler continued a strong stretch of pitching which dates back to the beginning of June.

Zack Wheeler was a hot trade chip for the New York Mets during last weeks busy Trade Deadline. The Mets actively shopped their flamethrower as he has been pitching very well as of late, but in the end, they could not find a partner which was willing to match their requests.

The sky was the limit for Wheeler’s potential, the righty had a very strong start to his career. It was soon thrown very off track as Wheeler missed 2015-16 with Tommy-John surgery, followed by 17 horrific starts in 2017. These three seasons left teams to question if Wheeler’s dominant pitching was more than just a hot streak.

Personally, I believe that Zack Wheeler has turned the page on his struggles. Wheeler continued his hot stretch of pitching with 7 shutout innings against the Atlanta Braves on Saturday night. Going into the playoffs, there will be teams wishing that they had paid the price for the Mets’ righty.

According to Metsblog.com, Wheeler had this to say regarding his latest strong outing.

“When they’re playing good defense behind you and we’re swinging it, I try and go out there and put up some zeroes,” Wheeler said. “It’s a recipe for a win.”

Zack Wheeler struggled at the start of 2018.  His first nine starts resulted in a record of 2-4, an ERA of 5.40 and a WHIP of 1.48. Hitters slugged to a batting average of .274 and a BAbip of .336.

Everything changed when the calendar turned to June. Going into Saturday, Wheeler’s previous 11 starts have delivered a record of 3-2 with an ERA of 3.20 and a WHIP of 1.15. Teams have hit a measly .227 with a BAbip of .287 over these 70.1 innings.

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Zack Wheeler is keeping opposing batters off base and continues to consistently generate soft contact. According to Baseball Savant, Wheeler allows hard contact only 28.3% of the time. This ranks eighth in Major League Baseball, with a minimum of 250 batted ball events.

Pitching coach, Dave Eiland deserves some credit for Wheeler’s success. Eiland came into Spring Training preaching the importance of pitching on the inside part of the plate. Zack Wheeler has seemed to embrace this ideology, according to BrooksBaseball, Wheeler has thrown around 31.405% of his pitches inside.

This classic pitching strategy calls for pitchers to establish a presence on the inside part of the plate. From there, pitchers can work hitters away with breaking and off-speed pitches. Wheeler has seemed to embrace this strategy, he featured a hard fastball inside and a curveball away in his latest start against the Atlanta Braves. This strategy helped Wheeler retire nine Braves’ batters on strikes.

Is Zack Wheeler finally living up to his potential for the New York Mets? The numbers say yes, it will be exciting to see how he performs throughout the rest of this season.