HOUSTON — The slider that Zack Wheeler threw to Alex Bregman in the bottom of the fifth inning wouldn’t have been more alarming if it was flashing red and blue. It did not dart, or dive, or act in any other way like a pitch that normally comes from Wheeler’s right hand. It was just kind of there.
Bregman, a third baseman who has been one of the primary constants during the Astros’ half-decade of dominance, did exactly what anyone would have expected him to do with such a pitch. He mashed it: so high and so hard that all anybody could do was crane their neck and watch.
The big question to emerge from the Phillies’ 5-2 loss to the Astros in Game 2 of the World Series is not the sort of thing that a team with championship aspirations can afford to be asking itself with three wins remaining against an opponent this good. Is five days enough time for Wheeler to get himself right? Or has the grind of a marathon season caught up to him for good?
