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.