Zack Wheeler is getting set to pitch in a World Series for the first time on Saturday night, listed as the Phillies’ game two starter, and tasked with giving the Phils a 2-0 series lead heading back home.
The architects of the last Mets team to reach the World Series hoped Wheeler would be anchoring a New York rotation to multiple Fall Classics, but instead, the hyped group of five that included Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, and Steven Matz never panned out.
“It could have been really good,” Wheeler told Joel Sherman of the New York Post before the start of the World Series. “It is unfortunate that we all weren’t healthy at the same time, basically. By the time I was healthy and back in there, someone else would be gone. It could have been special, for sure.
“But it’s part of baseball, right? You get people hurt, you get people going downhill or whatever. But, yeah, it would have been cool what might have been.”
Wheeler went through injuries before becoming an ace with the Phillies, while Matt Harvey flamed out after a heroic 2015 performance in the postseason.
Syndergaard battled injuries and is now teammates with Wheeler in Philadelphia, and Matz finished his Mets career with an underwhelming 4.35 ERA, pitching for the Cardinals in 2022.
Only deGrom remained with the Mets, while Wheeler and Syndergaard look to accomplish what New York fans thought they would do together as part of a hyped rotation that wound up only pitching together through a rotation turn only twice before being broken up.
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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