{"id":788417,"date":"2026-07-08T14:47:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T14:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/788417\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T14:47:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T14:47:19","slug":"zack-wheeler-ties-career-high-with-14-strikeouts-then-blasts-mlbs-decision-to-exclude-him-from-all-star-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/788417\/","title":{"rendered":"Zack Wheeler ties career high with 14 strikeouts, then blasts MLB&#8217;s decision to exclude him from All-Star game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Phillies pitcher Zack Wheeler described his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/kyle-schwarber-zack-wheeler-phillies-vs-reds\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">14-strikeout outing<\/a>\u00a0in a victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night as a &#8220;reminder for whoever needs to be reminded&#8221; that Major League Baseball erred in leaving him off the National League roster for next week&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/2026-mlb-all-star-game-philadelphia-schedule\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">All-Star game in Philadelphia<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It pisses me off and it&#8217;s kind of BS,&#8221; Wheeler (9-1) said in postgame comments broadcast by NBC Sports Philadelphia.<\/p>\n<p>The 36-year-old Wheeler&#8217;s career-high-tying strikeout performance in a 4-1 victory came mere hours after MLB announced that three other National League pitchers \u2014 Riley O&#8217;Brien of St. Louis, the Phillies&#8217; Jes\u00fas Luzardo and Pittsburgh&#8217;s Braxton Ashcraft \u2014 had been tapped as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/philadelphia-phillies-brandon-marsh-all-star-game-harper-schwarber\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">All-Star replacements<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The three late additions to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/philadelphia\/news\/phillies-mlb-all-star-legacy-projects-philadelphia\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">July 14 All-Star game<\/a> \u2014 being held this season in Philadelphia \u2014 replaced Pittsburgh&#8217;s Paul Skenes, Milwaukee&#8217;s Jacob Misiorowski and Miami&#8217;s Max Meyer, who are all scheduled to pitch for their teams this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Wheeler, too, is scheduled to pitch this weekend against Detroit, and was given the impression that it was the reason he wasn&#8217;t selected as a replacement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just because I pitch on a certain day, I get \u2014 you know \u2014 I don&#8217;t even know the right word,&#8221; Wheeler said. &#8220;Because I pitch on a certain day, I can&#8217;t pitch in the All-Star game or even be there or get the recognition.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Wheeler said that if a deserving pitcher wants to participate in the All-Star game, they should at least have the opportunity to be named to the roster, regardless of when they&#8217;re scheduled to pitch for their own team.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Maybe if I wasn&#8217;t necessarily right in there I wouldn&#8217;t be saying this, but I feel like I&#8217;ve earned it,&#8221; Wheeler said. &#8220;There&#8217;s certain ways to do it and you figure they would have a clue about it by now \u2014 how many All-Star games they&#8217;ve had.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Wheeler said he even would have been willing to pitch an inning in the All-Star game on two days&#8217; rest, when he&#8217;d normally be throwing anyway in a bullpen session.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s kind of a BS rule that just because I pitch on a certain day I get punished,&#8221; Wheeler continued. &#8220;I&#8217;ll be fine throwing an inning. But it&#8217;s not even an option, I guess.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kyle Schwarber, who helped power the Phillies&#8217; offense with his major league-best 31st home run of the season, said he understood Wheeler&#8217;s frustration.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When someone deserves it, you want them to get that acknowledgment,&#8221; said Schwarber, a four-time All-Star who was selected to this season&#8217;s National League roster as a designated hitter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re only in this game for so long,&#8221; Schwarber said. &#8220;You want to be able to look back and feel like you have some things that put some feathers in the cap.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\n          More from CBS News\n        <\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phillies pitcher Zack Wheeler described his 14-strikeout outing\u00a0in a victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday night as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[3307,49,48,462,4241,10345,481,82],"class_list":["post-788417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-all-star-game","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia-phillies","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}