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Zack Wheeler, J.T. Realmuto set to finally get a shot in the postseason

Zack Wheeler and J.T. Realmuto are both set to make their playoff debuts on Friday. (Cheryl Pursell)

It’s been a long time — a really, long time — coming for both Zack Wheeler and J.T. Realmuto to get to the postseason. But those two will be the battery when the Philadelphia Phillies play in their first postseason game in exactly 11 years Friday afternoon in St. Louis.

The No. 6 overall pick in the 2009 MLB Draft, Wheeler was traded as a prospect by the San Francisco Giants to the New York Mets in a July of 2011 for Carlos Beltrán. Tommy John surgery and subsequent setbacks cost him parts of three seasons in New York, and a chance to make a trip to the World Series in 2015. Infamously, the Mets didn’t have Wheeler travel with them for their postseason run, and wouldn’t even comp him to watch the games from the stands.

Now, after parts of eight MLB seasons — five in New York, three in Philly — and 195 regular season starts, Wheeler will get to toe the rubber in Game 1 of the NLWCS Friday.

“It’s pretty cool — especially Game 1,” Wheeler said in his media session in St. Louis Thursday afternoon. “It’s an honor that they chose me. We’ve got a lot of good pitchers in our rotation that could have easily taken the ball for Game 1, but they chose me and I’m trying to go out there and do the best I can. It’s definitely a privilege and an honor. You know, it has been a long road for me, and I’m definitely excited to be here.”

In addition to not being available for the 2015 season that saw the Mets win the NL Pennant, Wheeler missed all of the 2016 campaign, with his team eventually losing in the Wild Card Game to the Giants. For much of his career, Wheeler’s individual trials have come at the same time that his teams were having their tribulations.

“Yeah, there’s no way around that, it was a bummer,” Wheeler acknowledged. “To sit back and watch my friends and teammates basically just go to battle in the playoffs without me was tough. So, this time around, I’m here with these guys, I’m here on the field with them, and I look forward to it. It’s gonna be fun, especially playing for the city of Philadelphia. You know, they’re pretty crazy and they come out and support us, and hopefully we can get back there.”

No matter how much success a pitcher has had in the regular season, there’s always questions before his postseason debut. Heck, there were some who wondered how Roy Halladay would fare in Game 1 of the 2010 NLDS, his first career playoff appearance.

But if there is a group that wonders how Wheeler will adjust to the postseason stage, interim manager Rob Thomson isn’t sympathetic to your point of view.

“He’s one of the best pitchers in the game,” Thomson said Thursday. “So when you hand him the ball — and we’ve got a couple of these guys — when you hand those guys the ball, you really feel good about what the outcome is going to be. It’s not always there, but you feel good about it going in.”

Back in the early days of his Phillies tenure, Wheeler cited Realmuto’s presence as one of the reasons that he joined the team on a five-year/$118 million deal in advance of the 2020 season. He’ll now get the chance to throw to Realmuto in a playoff game.

For Realmuto — a third-round pick in the 2010 MLB Draft — it’s arguably been an even more winding path to the postseason. The star catcher spent the first five seasons of his career with the Miami Marlins, before being traded to the Phillies in February of 2019. 2021 was the first time Realmuto was even on a team that finished the season with a winning record. When the Phillies clinched a playoff spot in Houston on Monday, Realmuto snapped the second-longest active drought of games played to start a career without a postseason appearance, with teammate Jean Segura the only one with a lengthier streak.

The 31-year-old is coming off of another season where he was unquestionably the best catcher in baseball, with his career-high 6.5 WAR the 10th best mark among all position players, according to FanGraphs. Realmuto is a three-time All-Star, a two-time Silver Slugger Award winner and took home a Gold Glove Award in 2019.

His list of individual accomplishments will likely grow in the coming months. But he’s finally on a team that’s in the playoffs, and like Wheeler, has imagined what the environment at Citizens Bank Park would be like if the Phillies are able to advance to the NLDS.

“Yeah, I’m just glad we finally did it,” Realmuto said when asked about what it means to the fanbase to see the Phillies return to the postseason for the first time in over a decade.

“It’s obviously been a long time coming. We haven’t done as well the past few years as we had expected, but this year, you know, we finally got over the hump and got to the postseason. What we have in front of us is what we’ve been wanting all season long, a chance in the postseason. We just needed a ticket in the door, we’re here and now we just need your support. Hopefully, we can come and win this Wild Card series and then that first playoff home game in Philadelphia will be pretty electric.”

Last month, Thomson said Realmuto “should be in the MVP conversation.” He finished 14th in NL MVP voting in 2019, and likely will finish even higher in 2022.

Wheeler, of course, was the runner-up in NL Cy Young Award voting in 2021. Had right forearm tendinitis not cost him a month of the season, he was likely headed for another top-10 finish in 2022.

Both Realmuto and Wheeler have established themselves as among the best players at their respective positions over the past few seasons. And Friday, they’ll finally get a chance to shine on the postseason stage.