Philadelphia Phillies ace Zack Wheeler\u2019s season is over after being diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome, the team announced on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The 35-year-old right-hander will require decompression surgery in the coming weeks and is expected to miss six to eight months. The procedure threatens his ability to be ready for the start of the 2026 campaign.<\/p>\n
Wheeler recently underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from his upper right arm. A second opinion recommended further intervention. Thoracic outlet syndrome occurs when bones or muscle press on blood vessels in the upper chest, causing pain or numbness.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s disappointing, but everybody knows it\u2019s out of our control,\u201d said Phillies manager Rob Thomson. \u201cWe\u2019re happy he\u2019s going to be healthy, because it\u2019s a very serious thing that he went through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wheeler had reported \u201cheaviness\u201d in his shoulder after his 15 August start in Washington, prompting the Nationals\u2019 team doctors to examine him and discover the clot. Phillies head athletic trainer Paul Buchheit said the issue was unrelated to Wheeler\u2019s earlier shoulder soreness.<\/p>\n
Buchheit added that Wheeler could begin a throwing programme about eight weeks after surgery, though the precise timeline remains unclear. \u201cI\u2019m glad he\u2019s OK and the prognosis is he\u2019ll be back relatively soon in the [2026] season,\u201d said Dave Dombrowski, the club\u2019s president of baseball operations.<\/p>\n
Wheeler was 10-5 with a 2.71 ERA across 24 starts and 149 and two-thirds innings this season. His 195 strikeouts lead the National League and he was widely considered a Cy Young Award contender. A two-time runner-up for the award, he finished second in 2021 and 2024.<\/p>\n
The Phillies, who began the day six games clear of the New York Mets in the NL East, will lean on Aaron Nola, Taijuan Walker and left-handers Cristopher S\u00e1nchez, Ranger Su\u00e1rez and Jes\u00fas Luzardo to fill the void. Top prospect Andrew Painter, still finding form after Tommy John surgery, could also be called upon.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s never good to lose a Zack Wheeler, your No 1 pitcher,\u201d Dombrowski said. \u201cYou\u2019re never going to replace an individual like that. But we have a good ballclub, and we\u2019ll be looking for other people to step up and pick up the slack.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the setback, Thomson said he had not noticed a deflated mood in the clubhouse. \u201cThey\u2019re baseball players,\u201d he said. \u201cThey just kind of move on. We\u2019ve got a game today. They\u2019re not going to cancel it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Phillies ace Zack Wheeler\u2019s season is over after being diagnosed with thoracic outlet syndrome, the team announced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-92809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92809","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=92809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}