{"id":91975,"date":"2025-08-23T20:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-23T20:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/91975\/"},"modified":"2025-08-23T20:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T20:19:07","slug":"zack-wheeler-recommended-for-thoracic-outlet-syndrome-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/91975\/","title":{"rendered":"Zack Wheeler Recommended For Thoracic Outlet Syndrome Surgery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Phillies ace Zack Wheeler<\/a> underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from his near his throwing shoulder earlier this week, but the right-hander is now facing another serious health setback.\u00a0 As per a team media release today, Wheeler has been \u201cdiagnosed with venous thoracic outlet syndrome and the recommendation is to undergo thoracic outlet decompression surgery in the coming weeks.\u201d\u00a0 This naturally ends Wheeler\u2019s 2025 season, and he\u2019ll need roughly 6-8 months to recover from the surgery, according to the Phillies\u2019 projected timeline.<\/p>\n

The brutal news adds to a tumultuous week for Wheeler, as it was just seven days ago that he was placed on the 15-day IL due to the blood clot.\u00a0 The successful surgery on Monday at least alleviated the most serious health concerns and put the focus back on when Wheeler might be able to return to pitching, even if getting back to the mound in 2025 seemed unlikely.\u00a0 Details were kept relatively scarce about Wheeler\u2019s status, yet speculation about thoracic outlet syndrome was raised just due to the co-relation between blood clots and the venous version of TOS.<\/p>\n

Merrill Kelly<\/a> is the best-known example of a pitcher who underwent a venous TOS procedure, and Kelly is also the best-case scenario for what Wheeler can hope to achieve in the aftermath of his upcoming surgery.\u00a0 Kelly underwent his surgery in September 2020, was ready to go for the start of the 2021 season, and essentially didn\u2019t miss a beat in the aftermath as the right-hander continued to post solid numbers for the Diamondbacks and Rangers from 2021-25.<\/p>\n

This return to form was helped by the fact that a venous or vascular TOS surgery (related to blood clots) is the slightly less serious version of thoracic outlet syndrome, at least in regards to pitching.\u00a0 Jesse Dougherty of the Washington Post<\/a> wrote a piece a little over two years ago detailing some differences between venous TOS and neurogenic TOS \u2014 the latter is the nerve-related version that essentially ended Stephen Strasburg<\/a>\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you had to pick, you\u2019re not really sure which one you\u2019d rather have [between venous and neurogenic TOS],\u201d Kelly told Dougherty.\u00a0 \u201cThe blood clot was not fun.\u00a0 They are life-threatening.\u00a0 But for pitchers, TOS surgery to address a blood clot is much more straightforward than nerve issues.\u00a0 The diagnosis is more straightforward.\u00a0 The recovery is more straightforward.\u00a0 I was lucky in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

This provides a bit of a silver lining to Wheeler\u2019s situation, though naturally every person\u2019s body responds to surgery in different ways.\u00a0 Only time will tell if Wheeler\u2019s recovery can be as thorough as Kelly\u2019s, or if Wheeler\u2019s rehab period will extend into the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

Losing Wheeler for 2025, of course, is bad enough for a Phillies team that has designs on winning the World Series.\u00a0 Wheeler was in the midst of another excellent season, posting a 2.71 ERA and elite secondary metrics across the board over 24 starts and 149 2\/3 innings.\u00a0 Even in his age-35 season, the righty was continuing to add to a resume that will garner some attention from Cooperstown voters when he eventually retires.\u00a0 Since the start of the 2018 season, Wheeler leads all pitchers<\/a> in fWAR (37.5) and has a 3.11 ERA over 1356 2\/3 innings with the Mets and Phillies.<\/p>\n

Wheeler has been the anchor of Philadelphia\u2019s rotation since signing a five-year, $118MM free agent deal prior to the 2020 season, and then a three-year, $126MM extension for 2025-27 that was inked in March 2024.\u00a0 While losing Wheeler is a major blow, the Phils at least have a deeper rotation than most, and can still roll out Cristopher Sanchez<\/a>, Ranger Suarez<\/a>, Jesus Luzardo<\/a>, Aaron Nola<\/a>, and Taijuan Walker<\/a> as the starting five.\u00a0 There\u2019s extra pressure on the staff now that Wheeler is unavailable, and his sterling 2.18 career postseason ERA will be missed as the Phils try to capture that elusive championship ring.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead to 2026, Suarez is a free agent this winter but the other four pitchers will return, plus top prospect Andrew Painter<\/a> is expected to be ready for his first full Major League season.\u00a0 This gives the Phillies some cover if Wheeler\u2019s recovery does stretch beyond Opening Day, yet adding a depth arm might now be part of Philadelphia\u2019s offseason plans based on Wheeler\u2019s progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Phillies ace Zack Wheeler underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from his near his throwing shoulder earlier…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82,1492],"class_list":["post-91975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-zack-wheeler"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91975","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=91975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}