PHILADELPHIA _ Matt Klentak provoked a few snickers in National League East cities in December when he proudly declared that $118 million free-agent addition Zack Wheeler would join Aaron Nola atop the starting rotation to give the Phillies "as good a twosome as you'll find in the league."
Well, the general manager could submit the last two games at Citizens Bank Park as Exhibits A and B to prove his point.
One night after Nola outpitched Patrick Corbin and blanked the Washington Nationals for eight innings, Wheeler upstaged Max Scherzer with 6? scoreless innings in a 3-0 whitewashing of the World Series champions.
It marked the Phillies' first back-to-back shutouts of a team since a pair of 3-0 wins over Nationals on April 27-28, 2016, with Jeremy Hellickson and Nola on the mound. More importantly, Tuesday night marked the Phillies' eighth victory in nine games and put them in second place, two games behind the division-leading Atlanta Braves.
For Wheeler, it was a continuation of the way he has pitched since the season began. He leaned on his blazing fastball, which touched 98 m.p.h. and checked in at an average of 96.9. But he also mixed in a nasty slider and a few curveballs to generate 18 swings and misses on 109 pitches.
Wheeler lowered his ERA to 2.20 and raised his record to 4-0. He's the first Phillies pitcher to allow three runs or less in his first seven starts for the team since Fernando Valenzuela in 1994.
For a more recent comparison, consider Cliff Lee, who posted a 2.81 ERA, 47 strikeouts and six walks in 48 innings over his first seven starts after being acquired in a trade-deadline deal in 2009.
Wheeler has been even better than that.
Consider, though, that Nola has been just as good. Through seven starts, he has a 2.45 ERA, 57 strikeouts and only 12 walks in 44 innings. The Phillies are 9-5 in games started by Nola and Wheeler, who are lined up to start 10 of the team's final 28 games down the stretch.
Wheeler was in complete control against the Nationals. Victor Robles' one-out single in the third inning was the only hit that he allowed until a two-out infield single by Asdrubal Cabrera in the sixth. He worked ahead in the count, induced mostly weak contact, and was overpowering at times, such as when he struck out Juan Soto on a 98.5 m.p.h. heater in the first inning.
The Nationals finally made Wheeler work in the sixth inning, ratcheting up his pitch count to nearly 100. He recorded two outs in the seventh inning before newly acquired relievers David Phelps and Brandon Workman combined to get the final seven outs of the game.
Scherzer, as you would expect, matched Wheeler zero-for-zero through three innings, although it wasn't always easy. The Phillies made him throw 23 pitches in the first inning and put runners on base in each of the first two frames before finally breaking through for two runs in the fourth.
Leave it to Neil Walker, the stand-in for scorching-hot first baseman Rhys Hoskins to come up with the big hit. After J.T. Realmuto and Jean Segura worked walks and another impressive at-bat from rookie Alec Bohm resulted in a single that loaded the bases, Walker broke his bat on a first-pitch changeup from Scherzer and poked a two-run single into center field.
Jay Bruce added a home run to lead off the sixth inning to provide a three-run lead.
Phelps, making his Phillies debut, got the final out of the seventh inning on one pitch, then tossed a scoreless eighth before Workman nailed down the save.
