Phillies get terrible injury news on ace starting pitcher

There is no way to sugarcoat this for the Phillies — this is brutal news and a potentially crushing blow to their World Series chances in the National League.

While they still have a strong rotation and two excellent front-line starters in Cristopher Sanchez and Ranger Suarez, Wheeler is their unquestioned ace and been one of the best overall pitchers in the Nat ional League since he joined the Phillies prior to the 2020 season. 

The Phillies are still pretty much a playoff lock at this point and entered the weekend with a six-game lead over the New York Mets in the National League East standings. 

But taking a front-line starter away from them this late in the season is going to be impossible to replace. With Wheeler, Sanchez and Suarez, they would have had a fierce trio to throw at teams in a short series (or a best-of-seven series) that could have stacked up with anybody. Sanchez and Suarez are still going to give them a great chance, but it's definitely not what they wanted. 

Prior to Saturday's announcement, Wheeler had a 2.71 ERA and was leading the league in both strikeouts (195) and strikeouts per nine innings (11.7) pitched. He also has the lowest WHIP (walks/hits per innings pitched) in the league (.935).