Phillies Fire Rob Thomson, Name Don Mattingly Interim Manager
There’s a major shakeup in Philadelphia. The Phillies fired manager Rob Thomson on Tuesday morning. Don Mattingly is the interim skipper, with the team’s press release saying he’ll hold that position for the remainder of the 2026 season. Philadelphia promoted third base coach Dusty Wathan to replace Mattingly as bench coach while calling up Triple-A manager Anthony Contreras as third base coach.
Philadelphia is the second struggling big-market team to make an early managerial change. The Red Sox dismissed Alex Cora and much of their coaching staff over the weekend. The Phillies didn’t overhaul the staff to the same extent, but it’s a major change nonetheless. They’ll hope it’ll light a fire under an underperforming team that is out to a 9-19 start, tying them with the Mets at the bottom of the National League.
It’s easy to connect the dots given the timing of the firings. Phils president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski was leading the Red Sox’s front office when Boston first hired Cora in 2017. The Sox won the World Series a year later. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the Phillies offered the job to Cora, who declined while citing a desire to spend more time with family. Cora’s deal with Boston paid him upwards of $7MM per season through 2027, so he’s well positioned financially to take some time away if that’s indeed his preference.
The Phillies decided a change was needed even if Cora weren’t interested. Mattingly seems set to handle through the job through the end of the season. Of course, he has an even stronger tie with the Philly front office. His son Preston is Philadelphia’s general manager, the #2 in baseball operations underneath Dombrowski.
The firing ends Thomson’s three-plus year run leading the club, one that was highly successful overall. He was initially hired on an interim basis when the Phils dismissed Joe Girardi in June 2022. Thomson took over a team that was seven games below .500 and 12 back in the NL East. They went 65-46 the rest of the way to snag the NL’s final playoff spot, then tore through the Senior Circuit playoff field to win the pennant. Even after they dropped a six-game World Series at the hands of the Astros, it was an easy call for the Phillies to commit to Thomson as the full-time skipper.
It’d be too simplistic to attribute the ’22 turnaround solely to the managerial change. The Phils dismissed Girardi because they had a talented roster that wasn’t performing to expectations. Some kind of improvement was probably inevitable either way. The Phillies’ regular season results continued to improve during Thomson’s three full seasons at the helm. They respectively won 90, 95, and 96 games between 2023-25. Philadelphia has won the NL East in each of the last two seasons and comfortably made the playoffs all three years.
Despite the regular season trend, their postseason performances have gone in the wrong direction. Philadelphia lost a seven-game NLCS to the Diamondbacks in 2023. They’ve been bounced in the Division Series (by the Mets and Dodgers, respectively) in each of the past two years. Philly’s front office has pointed to the unpredictability of short series in remaining committed to Thomson as manager. They signed him to an extension running through 2027 last December.
Things changed quickly. The Phillies couldn’t have started this year much more poorly. They’ve only won two series, and those came against the Nationals and Rockies. They’ve lost each of their past six series, including a 10-game losing streak that dropped them from .500 to 8-18 last week.
The issues have been up and down the roster. Cristopher Sánchez has been their only effective starting pitcher. The offense has scored 102 runs, above only the Giants and Mets. They’re 29th in batting average and on-base percentage while ranking 17th in home runs. Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper and Brandon Marsh have been their only above-average hitters. They’ve gotten particularly poor starts from Alec Bohm and Bryson Stott, while offseason signee Adolis García hasn’t provided much in right field.
Philadelphia’s recent success has been built on excellent starting pitching and a potent lineup. They’ve had a difficult time building strong bullpens and are one of the league’s weakest defensive teams. The rotation should benefit from Zack Wheeler’s return from thoracic outlet surgery and more consistency from Jesús Luzardo, but they’re lacking depth beyond their top five arms. The Phillies let Ranger Suárez walk in free agency, relying on Andrew Painter to step into the rotation. Painter’s performance has been up and down, while Aaron Nola continues to be much too susceptible to home runs. They pulled the plug on Taijuan Walker last week, releasing the struggling righty once Wheeler returned.
The front office certainly deserves some of the blame for the underwhelming start. That said, it’s not as if Thomson’s managerial tenure was uniformly positive. He came under some fire for his in-game tactics in the playoffs and had a rift with Nick Castellanos, who publicly criticized the skipper’s communication skills. Veteran reliever Matt Strahm reportedly also voiced some displeasure internally with how Thomson handled his bullpen last season. The front office sided with Thomson in both instances, releasing Castellanos and trading Strahm to Kansas City.
It now falls on Mattingly to lead a turnaround, one the Phillies hope will resemble their 2022 season. They’ve already dropped 10.5 games behind the red hot Braves in the division race. Getting to 90 wins would require them to play at a 60.4% clip (a 98-win pace) for the rest of the season. It’s doable but leaves them without much margin for error, and another few weeks of play this poor would dig a hole from which they’d have almost no chance to recover.
The 65-year-old Mattingly is in his first season in Philadelphia. He spent the previous three seasons working as John Schneider’s bench coach in Toronto. The Jays came up just shy of winning a World Series last year and hoped to bring back their entire coaching staff. Mattingly declined, preferring the Philly opportunity. It seems fair to assume he didn’t expect to be the interim manager within a month of joining one of the NL’s perennial contenders, but that’s the situation in which he finds himself.
Mattingly has 12 seasons of managerial experience. He led the Dodgers from 2011-15 and skippered the Marlins between 2016-22. He predictably had much more success in Los Angeles, leading the team to three division titles. Mattingly made the postseason just once in seven seasons in Miami, a 31-29 showing during the shortened 2020 schedule. He holds an 889-950 record as a major league manager.
Wathan assumes his highest-profile role on the Philly staff. The 52-year-old has been in the organization for nearly two decades. He worked his way up as a minor league manager and has been the third base coach since the 2018 season. Wathan has held that position under Gabe Kapler, Girardi, and Thomson. Contreras now takes that role for his first MLB coaching opportunity. He has managed Triple-A Lehigh Valley for the last four-plus seasons.
Matt Gelb of The Athletic was first on Thomson’s dismissal and Mattingly being named interim manager. Respective images courtesy of Dale Zanine, Imagn Images.
Phillies Reinstate Zack Wheeler From 15-Day Injured List
Zack Wheeler is officially back on the Phillies’ roster, as the team announced that the right-hander has been reinstated from the 15-day injured list in time to start tonight’s game against the Braves. Righty Alex McFarlane was optioned to Triple-A to create space on the 26-man roster.
The three-time All-Star last appeared in a big league game on August 15, as his 2025 season was unexpectedly brought to an early end after Wheeler posted a 2.71 ERA over 24 starts and 149 2/3 innings. Wheeler was placed on the IL the next day due to the discovery of a blood clot near his throwing shoulder, and he quickly underwent surgery to have the clot removed. A thoracic outlet syndrome procedure followed in late September, and the fact that Wheeler had the venous form of TOS provided some hope that he would be able to return to pitching in relatively short order. (By comparison, the neurogenic form of TOS is more harmful to a pitcher’s recovery since it relates to nerve problems, if less of a threat health-wise.)
The initial optimism over Wheeler’s potential for a quicker return has proved true in the sense that the ace will be back on the mound today, almost exactly seven months to the day after his surgery. What remains to be seen, of course, is whether or not Wheeler will be able to return as a front-of-the-rotation starter. While TOS surgery is still a relatively new procedure and there isn’t a lengthy track record on recoveries, the list of pitchers who haven’t been the same after the surgery is considerably longer than the list of pitchers who returned in good form. Merrill Kelly is the best-case scenario of a hurler who continued to pitch well after undergoing a TOS procedure.
In terms of pure results, Wheeler’s 5.85 ERA over 20 innings in five rehab starts isn’t a great sign, nor is the fact that his average fastball velocity sat at only 92.9mph. (Wheeler’s career average is 95.8mph.) Still, Wheeler threw at least 72 pitches in each of his last two outings, and Phillies manager Rob Thomson suggested earlier this week that Wheeler wouldn’t be used beyond six innings or around the 90-pitch mark tonight.
Even if it may take a while before Wheeler looks like his old self, even a C+ version of Wheeler can boost a Phillies rotation that has struggled massively in the early going. The rotation’s cumulative 5.68 ERA ranks 28th of 30 teams in starter ERA, as everyone besides Cristopher Sanchez has yet to get on track. The starters have been only one piece of what has basically been a team-wide slump for the 8-18 Phillies, who take a 10-game losing streak into tonight’s contest.
Can Any Expected Contenders Escape The Early Holes They’ve Dug?
It's commonplace for at least one postseason hopeful to run into unexpected struggles early in the season. In the past, we've seen World Series aspirants and Wild Card hopefuls alike shoot themselves in the foot with sloppy April sequences that jeopardize their visions of October baseball. In some instances -- the 2022 Phillies, the 2024 Mets and, most notably, the 2019 Nationals -- teams are able to rally and make good on those playoff goals. For those 2019 Nats, they went so far as to win the whole thing. Nary a baseball fan in D.C. will ever forget the significance of the 19-31 record they faced roughly one-third of the way through the season.
More commonly, however, a disappointing April can prove to be a backbreaker. Fans need only look as far back as the 2025 Orioles to see a would-be contender whose awful early performance sunk their season before it ever had a chance to get going in earnest. The Orioles wrapped up April with a 12-18 record. By the midway mark of May, they were 15-27 -- buried by nine and a half games in the American League East and with their postseason hopes all but dashed.
There have been plenty of oddities so far in the 2026 season. Munetaka Murakami and Colson Montgomery are the first pair of teammates in MLB history with active streaks of homers in four or more consecutive games. (Oh, and Miguel Vargas has gone deep in three straight.) We're about one-sixth of the way through the season and Mason Miller has fanned a superhuman 71% of his opponents through 11 1/3 innings. Tigers phenom Kevin McGonigle, who skipped Triple-A entirely and broke camp as a 21-year-old, ranks fourth in the majors in Baseball-Reference WAR or fifth in FanGraphs WAR, if you prefer.
But the strangest development of the 2026 doesn't focus on any one player's individual efforts. To see the most bizarre facet of the season's first month requires a step back and a more macro look at the league as a whole.
Entering play Thursday, the four worst teams in baseball weren't the Rockies, Nationals, Twins or any other widely expected cellar dweller. Instead, the bottom-four records belong to the Royals, Phillies, Mets and Red Sox -- four clubs that entered the season with clear designs on contending. Fifth-worst are the White Sox -- not terribly surprising -- followed by the sixth-worst Astros. One game up in the standings are the Blue Jays and Mariners, last year's ALCS opponents.
In any given year, seeing one or two of these clubs faceplant out of the gate wouldn't be all that remarkable. Teams fall short of expectations all the time -- often well short. But to see seven clubs who entered 2026 as win-now teams populate bottom-10 spots in the leaguewide standings with more than four weeks of the season in the books is fairly incredible.
Is the season lost for any of these clubs? Not quite yet, but the margin for error has all but eroded. For most of these clubs -- especially the bottom four -- it's going to take something close to .600 ball the rest of the way to end up in contention. Let's take a look at this year's most disappointing clubs at the season's one-month mark to see if there's a chance of a rebound and, if not, who they might have to begrudgingly listen on at this year's Aug. 3 trade deadline.
Unlock Subscriber-Exclusive Articles Like This One With a Trade Rumors Front Office Subscription
- Access weekly subscriber-only articles by Tim Dierkes, Steve Adams, and Anthony Franco.
- Join exclusive weekly live chats with Anthony.
- Remove ads and support our writers.
- Access GM-caliber tools like our MLB Contract Tracker
Phillies Recall Alex McFarlane For MLB Debut
The Phillies announced that they have recalled right-hander Alex McFarlane from Double-A Reading. He’ll be making his major league debut as soon as he gets into a game. The Phils had an open roster spot due to yesterday’s moves, where they released Taijuan Walker and optioned Alan Rangel while recalling Nolan Hoffman.
McFarlane, 25 in June, was a fourth-round pick in 2022. The Phils tried him as a starter in the lower levels without much success. He underwent Tommy John surgery late in 2023 and missed all of 2024. Back on the mound in 2025, the Phils tried stretching him out again for a while, but moved him to a relief role late in the year. His final ten appearances were out of the bullpen. He wasn’t particularly impressive in those, with a 4.50 earned run average, 22.4% strikeout rate and 12.1% walk rate.
The Phils still believed in McFarlane th the point that they didn’t want him to get scooped in the Rule 5, so they added him to their 40-man roster in November. Baseball America ranked him the club’s #19 prospect coming into the year. FanGraphs put him at #14, highlighting the huge spin on his slider. He threw a splitter as a starter but both BA and FG suggest he would likely move to be more of a fastball/slider guy as a reliever.
He has started this year back at Double-A with some intriguing results. It’s only 6 1/3 innings but McFarlane has only allowed one earned run while striking out ten. However, there is some wildness, as he has walked four and thrown two wild pitches.
The Phils have been pushing their pitching staff a bit lately. Today will be the eighth game in a stretch of ten without an off-day. In the past five, their starter/bulk guy hasn’t gone more than 5 1/3 innings. That has left the relief group to pitch a lot, including five relievers in yesterday’s ten-inning loss to the Cubs.
McFarlane will give the club a fresh arm for tonight’s game. It’s possible he’ll be optioned back down right after. The Phils are planning to reinstate Zack Wheeler from the injured list to start Saturday’s game, so someone will have to be sent out for him. Since it could just be a short assignment, the Phils are going with McFarlane since he’s on the 40-man roster, skipping him over Triple-A. After the game, perhaps he will be sent back to Double-A Reading but heading to Triple-A Lehigh Valley is also a possibility.
Photo courtesy of Morgan Tencza, Imagn Images
Phillies Release Taijuan Walker
The Phillies have released veteran right-hander Taijuan Walker, per a club announcement. Philadelphia also optioned right-hander Alan Rangel to Triple-A Lehigh Valley and recalled right-hander Nolan Hoffman.
Walker, 33, is in the final season of a four-year, $72MM contract that didn’t pan out at all as the team hoped. It was a surprisingly large contract at the time he signed the deal. Walker was fresh off a solid 29-start showing with the Mets (3.49 ERA, 157 1/3 innings), but his rate stats didn’t support that level of run prevention. Walker had a decent season as an innings eating, back-of-the-rotation starter in year one of the contract (4.38 ERA, 172 2/3 frames), and he posted solid results between the rotation and bullpen in 2025 as well (4.08 ERA, 123 2/3 innings).
The other two seasons of the contract have been a nightmare. Walker was one of the least-effective pitchers in the sport in 2024, yielding a 7.10 earned run average across 83 2/3 innings. This season has gone even worse. The veteran righty has pitched 22 2/3 innings and been shelled for 25 runs (23 earned) on a whopping 36 hits and 11 walks with only 17 strikeouts. He’s working with the second-worst velocity of his career — ahead of only that disastrous ’24 campaign — and missing bats at his lowest levels ever. Between those red flags and the 9.13 ERA, the Phillies were left with little choice but to move on as they try to crawl out of an 8-16 hole and snap a woeful eight-game losing streak.
The Phillies will remain on the hook for the rest of Walker’s $18MM salary this season. He’s still owed a bit more than $15MM of that sum. Any team that signs Walker would owe him only the prorated league minimum for any time he spends on said club’s major league roster or injured list. That amount would be subtracted from what the Phillies owe, but they’re paying the vast majority of the tab even in a best-case scenario.
Ace Zack Wheeler will return to the Phillies’ rotation this weekend, though it’s anyone’s guess how he’ll perform on the heels of a procedure to address thoracic outlet syndrome. He’s posted a 5.85 ERA in 20 minor league rehab innings, albeit with more encouraging rate stats: 28% strikeout rate, 6.1% walk rate, 45.1% ground-ball rate. Wheeler will join last year’s Cy Young runner-up, Cristopher Sánchez, longtime top prospect Andrew Painter, and veterans Aaron Nola and Jesús Luzardo in the Philadelphia rotation.
All told, Walker ends up with 402 2/3 innings of 5.12 ERA ball as a member of the Phillies. He now becomes the second high-priced veteran whose contract will effectively be eaten by the Phillies this season. Outfielder/designated hitter Nick Castellanos was also cut loose from the final season of a five-year, $100MM contract just prior to spring training. He’s since signed with the Padres, for whom he’s batting .146/.196/.208 in 51 plate appearances. As with Walker, the Phillies are paying the vast majority of Castellanos’ $20MM salary. The Padres only owe him the prorated minimum for any time spent in the majors.
Phillies Place J.T. Realmuto On Injured List
3:20pm: The Phillies have now officially announced Realmuto’s IL placement, listing his ailment as back spasms. To open a 40-man spot for Stubbs, right-hander Max Lazar has been transferred to the 60-day injured list. Lazar began the season on the 15-day IL due to a left oblique strain. His 60-day count is retroactive to the start of the season, so he can be reinstated in late May. He hasn’t yet begun a rehab assignment.
1:10pm: The Phillies are going to place catcher J.T. Realmuto on the 10-day injured list due to a lower back injury, reports Matt Gelb of The Athletic. Fellow catcher Garrett Stubbs will be selected to take Realmuto’s place on the active roster. A corresponding move will be required to open a 40-man spot for Stubbs.
Realmuto was removed from Saturday’s game due to lower back tightness. He sat out the contests on Sunday and Monday before rejoining the lineup on Tuesday, though Gelb notes the injury was still limiting him. It seems the Phils and/or Realmuto have decided that he needs to rest up, rather than try to play through the issue.
That’s probably a sensible decision in the long term but the timing is challenging for the Phillies. They are out to a brutal 8-15 start to the season. They would be the worst team in the majors if not for the Mets struggling even more. The offense has been a particularly weak part for Philly thus far, as they have only scored 80 runs. The Mets and Giants are the only MLB teams with fewer.
Losing Realmuto won’t help. He hasn’t been on fire this year but his .259/.344/.352 line translates to a 100 wRC+, indicating he’s been exactly league average. Catchers are usually about ten points below par, so that’s actually pretty solid production for a backstop. It also has value in the context of so many other hitters in the Philadelphia lineup struggling.
For at least ten days, the Phillies will go with the pairing of Rafael Marchán and Stubbs behind the plate. Marchán has been part of Philly’s catching mix for years, debuting back in 2020, but hasn’t been able to get much playing time behind Realmuto. He has just 271 big league plate appearances spread across the years, with a .223/.283/.364 line and 77 wRC+. That includes a brutal .065/.094/.161 line so far in 2026.
Stubbs has also been in the Philly catching mix for years but both he and Marchán were out of options coming into 2026. The club dabbled with Stubbs playing other positions in spring but ultimately made the decision to go with Marchán as the backup and push Stubbs off the roster. He cleared outright waivers, allowing the Phillies to keep him around as non-roster depth.
That has led to today’s return to the big leagues. He has an excellent .289/.413/.632 line in Triple-A this year, but in a tiny sample size of ten games and 46 plate appearances. In his major league career, he has stepped to the plate 521 times and produced a .215/.293/.310 line and 70 wRC+.
Stubbs and Marchán will try their best to cover for Realmuto’s absence but his IL stint will make it a bit harder for them to pull out of this early tailspin. Ideally, he will heal up and return after a minimal absence. As mentioned, both Stubbs and Marchán are out of options, so one of them will likely be pushed off the roster when Realmuto’s IL stint is done.
Photo courtesy of Kyle Ross, Imagn Images
Phillies Re-Sign Pedro León To Minor League Deal
The Phillies re-signed outfielder Pedro León to a minor league contract, according to the MLB.com transaction tracker. He’s back with Triple-A Lehigh Valley but no longer occupies a 40-man roster spot.
Philadelphia released León on Saturday when they selected infielder Felix Reyes onto the roster. León had been placed on the minor league injured list with a right hamstring strain a couple weeks ago. Teams cannot place injured players on outright waivers, so the Phils released León to take him off the roster.
It’s unclear how long León will be sidelined. The Phillies evidently still like him as a depth piece but were willing to risk him signing elsewhere if needed to drop him from the 40-man. Philadelphia claimed León off waivers from Baltimore early in the offseason. He’s hitting .283 but has fanned 19 times in his first 53 plate appearances with Lehigh Valley.
León is a .253/.354/.443 hitter in just over 400 Triple-A games. His MLB experience consists of seven games for the Astros two years ago. León was once a highly-regarded amateur signee out of Cuba based on his power-speed combination. That has been undercut by strikeout issues that have made him an average Triple-A hitter.
Phillies To Activate Zack Wheeler On Saturday
Zack Wheeler will start for the Phillies against the Braves on Saturday night, manager Rob Thomson told reporters (link via Charlotte Varnes of The Athletic). It’ll be his season debut after last year’s thoracic outlet surgery.
Wheeler completed his fifth minor league rehab start on Sunday. He threw four innings and 77 pitches. Wheeler had gotten through 5 2/3 frames over 72 pitches in his previous outing. He should be able to work 80+ offerings in his season debut as long as he’s pitching well. Thomson suggested the Phils would cap him around 90 pitches and six innings in any case.
The Phillies have yet to name their starter for tomorrow’s game against the Cubs, though it’s expected to be an opener in front of Taijuan Walker. They’ll turn to Cristopher Sánchez on Thursday. Andrew Painter will go in Friday’s opener in Atlanta, with Aaron Nola getting the nod on Sunday. That’d give Jesús Luzardo six days of rest before next Tuesday’s series opener against the Giants.
Thomson declined to announce Philadelphia’s long-term pitching plans yet. One would imagine Walker will move into a long relief role after tomorrow’s scheduled bulk appearance. The veteran righty has had a miserable start to the season. Walker has yet to make it beyond five innings in any of his first four starts. He has given up six home runs over his past three appearances.
This is the final season of Walker’s four-year, $72MM free agent deal. If the Philadelphia bullpen were at full strength, they might have had a difficult call in whether to carve out a relief role to keep him on the roster. Recent injuries to Jhoan Duran, Jonathan Bowlan and Zach Pop probably ensure that Walker will hold a roster spot. The Phils can option any of Kyle Backhus, Chase Shugart or Alan Rangel once Wheeler returns.
Walker’s struggles have been just one aspect of a brutal start for the Philly rotation. That was expected to be a strength, but only Sánchez has gotten out to a great start to the season. Luzardo has been frustratingly inconsistent. Nola has struggled with the home run ball for a few years and has allowed just over five earned runs per nine innings. Painter has been their second-best starter on a rate basis, though that’s at least partially because the Phillies have mostly shielded him from facing a lineup three times in a game.
Philadelphia’s rotation ranked 27th in MLB with a 5.48 earned run average entering play tonight. That’ll improve slightly after Luzardo managed 4 2/3 frames of one-run ball, but he walked four batters and threw 100 pitches in an inefficient showing. The Phils lost to the Cubs by a 7-4 score, dropping them to 8-15 on the year. Although it has been overshadowed a bit by the Mets’ horrendous start, this has been a rough couple weeks for the two-time defending NL East champions.
They’ll hope for Wheeler’s activation to provide a spark. His post-injury form remains to be seen. The three-time All-Star was one of the top 5-10 pitchers in MLB before the injury. However, his velocity has been down three miles per hour during his Triple-A rehab work. He’s sitting around 93 mph after averaging 96 last year.
Zack Wheeler On Track For Late April Return
TODAY: Wheeler threw 77 pitches over four innings in today’s outing, recording four strikeouts while allowing four earned runs on six hits and a walk. Wheeler told the Trentonian’s Greg Johnson and other reporters that he feels ready to return to the majors, and felt the cooler and rainy conditions for today’s game contributed to his low-90s velocity.
“I’m a high 90s guy, mid 90s guy, and it’s not there right now. You kind of have to pitch a little bit more when that happens,” Wheeler said. “You’ve got to move the ball around and you’ve got to hit your spots, you’ve got to fool guys a little bit more than kind of just rearing back and throwing. I think that’s probably going to be the biggest adjustment, if that is still down when I do come back. Like I said before, hopefully this warmer weather allows me to kind of get back to close to where I used to be at least, and hopefully get there throughout the season.”
APRIL 18: Right-hander Zack Wheeler has been on the mend from thoracic outlet surgery since last September, with an early-season return being the goal for the Phillies. That could happen very soon, as Scott Lauber of The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that Wheeler will make one more rehab start for the Double-A Reading Fightin Phils on Sunday. If all goes well, he could rejoin the major league club next weekend for their series against the Braves.
At the time of the surgery, Wheeler’s recovery was expected to take 6-8 months. A return at the short end of that range would have brought him to the opening week of the season and left no time for a full ramp-up. Given that Wheeler has continued to pitch like an ace into his mid-30s, the Phillies were never going to risk bringing him back too early. That said, his recovery was progressing well overall, and manager Rob Thomson indicated last month that the club expected a return not “too far beyond” Opening Day. Evidently, the 35-year-old has shown enough in his rehab stint to rejoin the big-league rotation by the end of April.
Wheeler made 24 starts last year and was in top form the whole way. He posted a 2.71 ERA in 149 2/3 innings with a career-high 33.3% strikeout rate and just a 5.6% walk rate. That performance was good for 4.0 fWAR, which tied him for 11th among big-league starters despite throwing significantly fewer innings than usual. His dominance was interrupted by an IL stint in August for a right upper extremity blood clot, which led to the discovery of venous TOS and his subsequent season-ending surgery. Venous TOS is the less severe form of the injury, with the Diamondbacks’ Merrill Kelly being the best example of returning to form following surgery.
The Phillies are surely hoping Wheeler can do the same. Their rotation has performed unevenly through their first 19 games to the tune of a 5.55 ERA. While Cristopher Sánchez is dominating as usual and Jesús Luzardo and Andrew Painter are outperforming their surface numbers, Taijuan Walker has struggled badly through four starts. He allowed two earned runs in five innings against Arizona last week but has given up at least four earned runs in his other three starts. Most recently, he allowed seven earned runs on seven hits and three walks in just four innings against the Braves.
Though he’s likely to get one more start, Walker could lose his spot to accommodate Wheeler’s return, according to Matt Gelb of The Athletic. That leaves Walker ticketed for a bullpen role, though he’ll surely get more starts throughout the year in the event of an injury. Walker made 17 relief appearances from 2024-25 with unspectacular results. Given his struggles so far in 2026, he’ll likely be limited to low-leverage spots.
Photo courtesy of Ken Blaze, Imagn Images
J.T. Realmuto Leaves Game Due To Lower Back Tightness
The Phillies fell to 8-12 with Saturday night’s 3-1 loss to the Braves, and they had a bit of an injury scare with their starting catcher. J.T. Realmuto left the game during the sixth inning with lower back tightness, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Lochlann March and others. Manager Rob Thomson said that Realmuto originally tweaked his back and left knee during a play at the plate on Friday (link via Todd Zolecki of MLB.com). His knee was fine tonight, but his back issue flared up again. Rafael Marchán eventually pinch-hit for Realmuto in the seventh.
Thomson doesn’t think Realmuto will need to go on the injured list, although he probably won’t play tomorrow. After posting slightly below average offense in 2025, Realmuto’s gotten off to a better start in 2026. Through his first 15 games entering play tonight, he is batting .292/.382/.396 with a 123 wRC+. His power is down slightly, as evidenced by his .104 isolated slugging percentage. Realmuto has compensated by walking at a 9.1% clip, up from 6.4% last year, and cutting his strikeouts from 23.5% to 20.0%. His .361 average on balls on in play indicates some good luck, but nonetheless, the club is happy to have bounce-back production from Realmuto so far.
The veteran catcher has a reputation for durability, especially for the modern game. From 2022-25, Realmuto led the league with 491 games started behind the plate. Cal Raleigh was a distant second with 457 games in that span. Since joining the Phillies in February 2019, Realmuto has only been on the IL three times, with one of those being a one-day stint on the COVID IL in 2021. Given his age, production, and the fact that he’s only just started his new three-year, $45MM deal, it’s hardly a surprise that the club will give Realmuto a chance to rest, if only for a day.
If his back remains a lingering problem, the club would turn to Marchán behind the plate. Originally signed out of Venezuela in 2015, Marchán has now spent over a decade in the Phillies’ system. However, despite having over three years of service time, his big-league resume consists of only 261 plate appearances over 88 games. His career line of .228/.290/.376 (83 wRC+) is reasonable for a backup catcher, though his opportunities beyond that have been limited in part due to Realmuto’s presence.
The two are the only catchers on the club’s 40-man roster at the moment. Meanwhile, only two of the club’s top 30 prospects are catchers according to MLB.com, and neither one has reached Triple-A. If a depth option is needed, the club might explore the waiver wire or a minor trade.
Photo courtesy of Kyle Ross, Imagn Images