The Toledo Mud Hens must have felt like they had all been promoted to the majors on Saturday. They started off facing Zack Wheeler and after he left, Orion Kerkering came on in relief. Even though the two only covered four innings, it’s not surprising that the rare double-rehab day at Coca-Cola Park resulted in a 1-0 win for the Lehigh Valley IronPigs.
Wheeler started and had no problem completing his three scheduled innings of work. The right-hander, who is recovering from thoracic outlet surgery (TOS) made his first appearance against hitters who weren’t in the Phillies organization. Wheeler was limited to around 45 pitches but needed only 38 — 26 of which were strikes — to get his day of work in.
In his first inning, Wheeler was involved in an interesting matchup against 21-year-old Max Clark, the number six prospect in all of Major League Baseball. Wheeler missed on his first two pitches, a four-seamer and a splitter, and then threw a 94 mph four-seam fastball for a strike. It almost wasn’t fair when Wheeler came right back with an 81 mph sweeper that Clark swung through. Wheeler then missed with a pair of fastballs and issued a walk. When the two met again in the third inning, Wheeler opened with a four-seam fastball for a ball, threw a 79 mph curve that Clark missed on, and then got the prospect to groundout to first on an 84 mph splitter.
Wheeler threw all five of his pitches and had good command on all of them. His velocity started in the 92-93 mph range, but quickly ticked up to 94 mph. In the third inning, his velocity was down slightly to around 92 mph.
“The spin pitches today, whether it be a curve, the sweeper, or the cutter, weren’t doing necessarily what I needed them to do, but the curveball had good shape on it and it was moving so much that it was effective today,” noted Wheeler. “It’s something that will come with higher reps. I was really happy with the splitter today, it was working really well.”
After walking Clark in the first inning, Wheeler gave up a single to Jace Jung. From there though he came back to strikeout both Eduardo Valencia and Trei Cruz, needing just seven pitches to dispatch the pair of hitters and strand two hitters.
The baserunners gave Wheeler the opportunity to pitch out of the stretch, which is something he has not quite felt comfortable with this spring.
“A couple of guys told me I was a little bit higher out of the stretch which was good, because I’ve felt terrible out of the stretch so far throughout this process, so I’m happy coming out today with a few different things; today went well,” said Wheeler.
Zack Wheeler’s Final Line with Lehigh Valley
| IP | H | R | BB | K | BF | P-S | 1st P Strikes |
| 3.0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 12 | 38-26 | 6 |
Kerkering, who received a big ovation from the crowd when he entered the game, barely broke a sweat in his one inning of work. Kerkering, who turns 25 on April 4th, faced Eduardo Valencia, Trei Cruz, and Max Anderson and threw just 10 pitches to record two groundball outs and a strikeout.
Kerkering’s high velocity was 96.9 on a sinker and 96.8 on a four-seam fastball, both of which came while he was facing Cruz, who he got looking with the high velocity sinker. Kerkering threw three straight sinkers to Cruz. The first was 92 mph for a ball, the second one was at 89 mph and was fouled off, and the last one was the high velocity one that froze Cruz for the third strike. A fourth straight sinker to Anderson came in at 95 mph and was grounded to third for the final out of the inning.
The hamstring injury that sidelined Kerkering early in camp is now completely healed and the righty has no residual effects from the injury. Now, he’s just working to get into shape after missing most of Spring Training. During the offseason Kerkering has been working on adding a splitter and threw it twice in his rehab outing. The first was at 87 mph and in the dirt to Valencia. His second was fouled off by Cruz and was at 89 mph.
“The last two weeks have been probably the most that I have been comfortable with it. I’ve been talking it over with a lot of different guys and trying to get what their cues are has helped a lot,” said Kerkering, who also said that the cold weather didn’t hamper his ability to grip the pitch or to throw it.
While he was happy with the results of his first rehab outing, Kerkering has some more boxes to check off on his “to do list” before being ready to rejoin the Phillies. First, is just getting the outings that he needs to be in shape to return. Next comes working on things like pitching in back-to-back games. Kerkering will travel back to Philadelphia and fly out to Durham on Monday to join the IronPigs for their series against the Durham Bulls. There is no exact timetable for his return to the Phillies active roster.
Orion Kerkering’s line with Lehigh Valley
| IP | H | R | BB | K | BF | P-S | 1st P Strikes |
| 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 10-7 | 2 |
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