Zack Wheeler and the 100-pitch barrier

Zack Wheeler followed up his strong first start with an outing that’s a little tough to categorize. The final line shows it as a bare minimum Quality Start (6 IP, 3 ER) with a Bill James Game Score of 45. My opinion is that Wheeler pitched better than what that might imply and while he struggled some with his usual issue of nibbling, he was beat more by bloops and bleeders than anything else.

The first batter of the game hit a booming double but that was the hardest struck hit of the night off Wheeler. Asdrubal Cabrera made a nice play on a ground ball by the next batter which put a runner on third base with Bryce Harper coming to the plate. Harper’s been on fire and at this point the thought should be to let anyone else on the Nationals beat you. If I was managing, my move here would have been what the SNY booth calls the Abracadbra Walk. Instead, the Mets chose to pitch to Harper.

The result was the same – a walk. But this version of the walk caused Wheeler some early high stress pitches. It’s possible that the walk to Harper influenced the next AB, too. That PA ended in a walk, too. All told, that was 12 pitches to two batters, with the end result of loading the bases. But Wheeler got a double play to end the inning.

He cruised through the next inning but gave up a run in the third, thanks to two singles and a Sacrifice Fly. The Nationals ended up scoring two runs in the fourth inning, on three singles and a walk, with placement being more important than hard contact on the two run-scoring hits.

After that, Wheeler found a groove. He retired nine of the last 10 batters he faced, allowing just a single in that stretch. He needed just 12 pitches to retire the side in the sixth inning. But at that point, he had thrown 99 pitches and his spot in the order came to bat in the bottom of the inning. Wheeler had two hits in the game already and was cruising. But Mickey Callaway opted to send up Jose Reyes to pinch-hit. Reyes is hitless for the season and he didn’t break the skid. And the Nationals went on to score two runs against the Mets’ pen to salt away the win.

The decision to pinch-hit for Wheeler in that spot is one that probably all 30 managers in the game would make. And in my opinion it was the wrong one. In an effort to save pitchers’ arms, the idea has developed that 100 pitches is some magic line that should only be crossed with extreme care and that outings with 110 or more pitches should be avoided like the plague.

My opinion is that 100 pitches is an excellent starting point but you have to judge how the individual pitcher got to that point in the game. In this outing, Wheeler was doing a good job of throwing strikes after the first inning. From the second inning thru the sixth, Wheeler threw 80 pitches and 55 were strikes. In addition to throwing strikes, he wasn’t allowing loud contact and he cruised through his final inning.

Perhaps the unpleasant weather conditions made removing Wheeler at that point the right call. But moving forward, when the weather hopefully warms up, it would be nice to see a shift towards asking starters to carry a bigger load when both their stuff and the game situation warrants it. Note that this is not a blanket plea to throw out pitch counts and expect guys to throw 130 or more pitches each and every outing. Instead it’s asking that a pitcher be allowed to go out and occasionally exceed 110 pitches without everyone losing their mind.

Sunday afternoon, Noah Syndergaard was striking out everyone but was removed when he allowed a bases-empty single on pitch 101. On Monday night we saw Jacob deGrom removed after 103 pitches when the guy coming up to hit was a batter he had struck out each of his three previous trips to the plate. On Tuesday, Wheeler is removed after 99 pitches despite retiring nine of the last 10 batters he faced.

In each of those three games, the bullpen allowed runs to score in the inning they first came on, with two of those games including inherited runners. The relievers had been exceeding expectations and undoubtedly were due for a few bad appearances. But this is not about attempting market timing with bullpen usage; it’s asking for flexibility in how to apply pitch counts to the starter.

The hope was that bringing on a former pitcher in Callaway as manager would result in markedly different usage among all of the team’s pitchers. And we’ve seen Callaway embrace the multi-inning relief outing, which is a huge step in the right direction. But we’ve seen a bit too much dependence on matchups and we haven’t seen any difference in starting pitcher usage.

Wheeler may not have many more chances to show he deserves a spot in the rotation. My opinion is that he deserved the chance to go out for another inning on Tuesday. Hopefully the next time a starter, regardless of who he is, finds himself in the circumstances that Wheeler did against the Nationals, he’ll get the chance to continue on when he’s cruising, even if his pitch count is at the 100-pitch mark.