Phillies: Ranking the team’s top 5 starting pitchers in 2021

As the Philadelphia Phillies prepare to embark on their 50th game of the 2021 season, the team has seen its ups and downs in many areas — including from its starting rotation under new pitching coach Caleb Cotham.

While the group is nothing like the days of Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Roy Oswalt, and Joe Blanton, entering Wednesday, it ranks ninth in K/9 (9.65), fifth in BB/9 (2.49), 13th in ERA (3.95), and eighth in WAR (5.1).

Here is a ranking of the top five Phillies starting pitchers so far this season, helping the team to a near-.500 record at 24-25:

1. Zack Wheeler, RHP

• 4-2, 2.38 ERA
• 10 starts (7 quality starts)
• 1 complete game, 1 shutout
• 68 innings pitched
• 19 runs (18 earned runs) allowed; 5 home runs allowed
• 14 walks, 78 strikeouts

Seven-year veteran Zack Wheeler has clearly been among the most valuable Phillies players so far, putting up numbers in similar fashion as some Hall of Famers did while wearing the team’s uniform. According to Baseball-Reference, Wheeler is among just four Phillies pitchers that have 75-plus strikeouts with a sub-2.50 ERA through their first 10 starts of a season, joining Steve Carlton (1972, 1983), Curt Schilling (1998), and Halladay (2011).

The Phillies have won four straight games that Wheeler has started — the first in the stretch being his second career complete-game shutout against the Milwaukee Brewers on May 6. In his most recent outing, he struck out a career-high-tying 12 batters, helping the Phillies avoid being swept by the American League East’s Boston Red Sox.