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What ever happened to the Rule of Three?

Just this past week in Philly sports, we had two major injury scares that, upon further review, were not so bad. Certainly in the “Could have been a lot worse!” category. First it was Landon Dickerson, who got carted off at Eagles open practice at The Linc. A few days later, he was walking on the practice field with a bag of beers in hand and the expectation that he will return, if not for Week 1, at some point in the first few weeks.

And then on Friday, Jhoan Duran’s first appearance after five days off was certainly a memorable one. Paul DeJong hit a comebacker off Duran’s right ankle that certainly had to hurt at 94.1 mph off the bat. Duran ran after the ball into foul territory, limped a few of his last steps, and finally pulled up about halfway in between the base line and the Phillies’ dugout.

What happened next was unorthodox to say the least: Duran stood in that same exact spot for six whole minutes, as the Nationals took forever to get the friggin’ bullpen cart (because the medical cart was trapped somewhere) for him. The man literally did not move. He just stood in that spot, like he was posing for a portrait, and then rode on a bullpen cart. The play did not seem like something that should make Duran immobile, but as we would later learn, the visiting clubhouse at Nationals Park apparently has Hogwarts-style moving staircases that lead to the dugout. I wondered if Duran had broken a bone in his foot.

Just an absurd visual. But importantly, an absurd visual that we can now laugh at.

The news on Duran got better as the weekend progressed. On Friday night, the x-rays were negative. On Saturday, instead of a just-to-be-safe IL stint, he declared himself 100 percent and available for that day’s game. OK, that was weird… but alright! And on Sunday, he warmed up quickly and promptly shut the door after Max Lazar made a complete mess of a big lead in the ninth inning. 102 with run to James Wood (Washington’s best hitter) to end it. As a reminder, you can get your Durantula shirt. And you can get it included by signing up for our Diehard sale.

Alas, we did not get a Rule of Three with “Philly Sports Injury Scares That Turn Out OK.” In fact, we got the opposite: A development that seemingly came out of nowhere that may not turn out OK… with “OK” meaning “able to return this season” in this case.

Probably like many of you, I was steaming after the Phillies offense put up a goose egg on Saturday and wasting another excellent Taijuan Walker start in the process. And as I was looking at my phone, I had the post-game show on mute. I looked at up one point and saw Dave Dombrowski talking. That is when you knew something was up. Dombrowski is not speaking after a game unless it’s the trade deadline or something bad happened.

And oh boy, something was up alright. Dombrowski announced that Zack Wheeler is going on the 15-day injured list after they found a blood clot in his right upper extremity (near his shoulder, per Jeff Passan). Other than that, there is no timeline. Jamie and I (and my cat, Cooper) recorded a live reaction pod about it here.

It feels like the reaction to this news has been, I don’t know, delayed? In some ways, that makes sense. We just do not know how long Wheeler will be out.

The Phillies clearly do not, either. After Dombrowski got done talking, he then put trainer Paul Buchheit (who Wheeler has credited many times for keeping him healthy behind the scenes, an important person) in front of the cameras. Poor guy, he had no info to share whatsoever. It was a fair appraisal of the situation’s uncertainty, though. When someone tears an ACL or Achilles, you immediately know that they are done for the season… even if you love attention as much as Aaron Rodgers.

I have seen some informed speculation (you know, from actual doctors) that Wheeler’s blood clot might be due to the dreaded thoracic outlet syndrome, which was a huge part of The Markelle Fultz Experience. If you look at past pitchers with either blood clots or TOS, the return-to-play timelines vary depending on the exact issue. Again, a lot of uncertainty here. That said, a lot of the examples I googled were in the 3-5 month range. I am not saying Zack Wheeler’s 2025 season is definitively over, because there seem to be a few examples with a quicker timeline. But there is at least a decent chance that his season is over.

A big reason for that? A blood clot is a more serious issue than your normal sports injury. I do not believe we have dealt with a high-profile one in Philly sports since Kimmo Timonen in 2014. Anyway, this is not a player gutting through an injury and maybe having a more pronounced limp 20 years down the line because of it. If not treated, blood clots are potentially life threatening. Scary stuff. We will see what Wheeler’s treatment ends up being, whether it is blood thinners or he needs a surgery too.

Burying the lede, but the first takeaway here is that thankfully they caught it and Wheeler appears to be doing OK. He was definitely not himself on the mound over the past month, and I am curious how much this issue affected him. But I am thrilled that he told the training staff about his symptoms on Saturday and get the care he needs.

OK, let’s talk about the Phillies. If Wheeler does miss the end of the season, it is an absolute disaster. No way around that. After all, I and many others have been calling their current timeline “The Wheeler Window.” For him to potentially not be available for the stretch run and postseason is devastating. There is no way to sugarcoat that possibility.

The Phillies are currently 71-53, which is tied for the second-best record in the National League. That is great, but as this past week showed, they are still a very flawed baseball team. And during those periods when the bullpen leaks oil (happening less frequently) and bats go silent (still happening a lot!), the starting rotation was the safety blanket. More specifically, it was the idea of “Wheeler Game 1, Sánchez Game 2.” Despite the rest of the team’s inconsistencies, you would feel decent going to war with those two horses.

Well, there is a chance that is not the case anymore. And that, my friends, sucks.

I am more worried about what this news potentially means for October, but the Phillies are not out of the woods in the division yet either. Think about the once-loaded starting rotation. You feel great about Sánchez, but without Wheeler, after that? Jesús Luzardo is capable of brilliance, but is also incredibly flammable. Ranger Suárez has lost a few ticks on his fastball and yet again appears to have run out of gas midseason. Aaron Nola returned from three months away yesterday and did not make it out of the third inning. Nola has provided the Phillies with absolutely nothing yet this season. There will be calls for Andrew Painter, and maybe we see him, but his Triple-A performance does not make me particularly hopeful.

(I think I am currently the second-most confident about Tai? That will probably change in a week or two, but bizarre times.)

Watching Nola get shelled, I thought about how fortunate the Phillies have been to have both him and Wheeler. Differing levels of success over the past five years — Wheeler has probably been the best pitcher in the sport — but Phillies fans have been spoiled with how durable both of those guys are. The top-two in all of MLB in innings pitched from 2020 to 2024, with 850 (Nola) and 829.1 (Wheeler). Nobody else was above 816, and only three other pitchers were above 793.

It is borderline comical how durable those two have been. But especially in sports, all good things come to an end at some point.

If Wheeler is in fact out for the season, I am not gonna tell you the Phillies have no shot in the playoffs. This is baseball! Weird stuff happens all the time. The Phillies’ objectively worst playoff participant from 2008 to 2011 (OK, 2008 and 2009 are arguable) was the only one that won the World Series. And this is Philadelphia! The Eagles won a Super Bowl with a backup quarterback. If Wheeler is out, the rest of the Phils have no choice but to rally and become legends. I could see “Win it for Wheeler” becoming the rallying cry.

But for now, this news is tough. Let’s hope for the best for Wheels, first with his overall health and then for this season.

Cleveland 22, Eagles 13 but who cares? Always feels like the preseason game after two joint practices is anti-climactic, and this was no different. Bo and Jamie had a quick post-game pod for you here. My guy Jamie was working overtime on Saturday!

The big winner of the day has to be Drew Mukuba. Heading into training camp, it felt like he was in the pole position for the second starting safety job. It was not like the Monaco Grand Prix, where whoever wins gets that pole should win the race. Mukuba has to beat out Sydney Brown, there is a legitimate competition here. But all things equal, Mukuba just got drafted in the second round and teams expect second-round picks to be starters.

From someone who has only been reading the practice reports, it has seemingly been an inauspicious training camp for Mukuba. First, he missed about a week’s worth of practice time and the first preseason game due to a shoulder injury. Just like you can’t make the club in the tub, it is difficult to win a camp battle from there… especially as a rookie who could use the reps as much as anyone. And as EJ has pointed out, Mukuba has given up a few plays in the passing game. There is a nuance there, and EJ said he wanted to reserve judgement for the game. Heading into his preseason debut, Mukuba was the guy I was most excited to watch.

Mukuba responded by being the player of the game. Isn’t it nice when that happens?

Trash route concept from the Browns players (an execution issue, Kevin Stefanski did not draw that slop up), with two guys standing right next to each other. I thought that pick-six was such a smart play from Mukuba, though. Illegal contact becomes legal when the quarterback is out of the pocket and the ball has not been released, an old Legion of Boom trick. Mukuba shoves the front receiver right in the back (legal), the ball is where that guy would have been standing, and he knifes in between the two receivers for the interception. Beautiful stuff.

Mukuba did have five interceptions as a senior at Texas. Do we have an emerging ball-hawk here?

Other than that play, Dillon Gabriel and the Browns offense moved the ball pretty well against the Eagles’ “Battles and Backups” defense. The pass-rush was not very good, which is a minor issue that I am keeping my eye on. No Jalyx Hunt, Jalen Carter, Moro Ojomo or Nolan Smith, but pass-rush needs to come from backups as well. But Uncle Vic did get positive contributions from two key rookies: Mukuba had two turnovers (he fell on a fumble, too) and Jihaad Campbell had a nice sack on a blitz.

Unlike the days of Tanner McKee helming the position, the QB3 comp feels very much like a QB3 comp should. And as Bo noted, the backup offensive line did not inspire much confidence.

John Metchie trade: This was a weird one. As my guy BLG mentioned on yesterday’s live reaction pod, Metchie was someone who was in Eagles trade rumours last offseason. “Eagles are deep in the secondary, Texans are deep at receiver” kinda thing. I proposed a “Kelee Ringo for John Metchie” trade on the pod, and it was the angriest the sickos in the live chat ever got at me. Fair enough, I learned my lesson.

Well, Metchie got traded for Harrison Bryant. But that is not my favorite part of this trade, which I will type out in full:

My favorite part of this trade is that those picks got traded by the same two teams just a few months ago. Remember this one?

Yes, the same exact picks. Howie did not like something about that fifth-rounder, it must have smelled unpleasant to him. So, the updated terms of the trade:

As for Metchie, an Alabama guy who played with DeVonta Smith. Slot receiver, dirty work kind of player. Good story, overcame leukemia to return to the field. I hope there is no corresponding Eagles injury involved here. Bryant probably was not making the roster — Kylen Granson feels like TE3 — so it could just be a dart throw. Not a ton of production from Metchie the last two years.

Phils split in Washington: The ebbs and flows of baseball, man. One week you are on top of the world, the next week you are struggling big-time. You will take a 6-4 road trip any day of the week, but it was disappointing not to do better after winning four in a row to start and having four left in Washington. Those two losses to the Nats stunk.

I feel like I hit on the big storylines up top, but the other one is that Alec Bohm returned to action on Sundee. Unlike Aaron Nola, he gave the good folks at Roku a late-morning show. Bohm went 2-4 with a three-run bomb.

The Phils quietly need Bohm, who missed about a month with a rib fracture. I thought the fielding would be more of a problem, but Phils third basemen had just a .661 OPS during the time Bohm was gone.

Otto Kemp got sent down, which is understandable but a bummer. Salute to your willingness to get hit by the pitch, young man.

NY Red Bulls 1, Union 0: Not a good loss at all. The Union dropped back to the second place in the East.

The Big Dumper is in town! The Mariners played in the Williamsport game last night (loved the Chester County kids talking trash to Pete Alonso), I wonder if they flew? If so, how long is that flight? Ranger on the bump against Logan Gilbert (6:45 p.m, NBC Sports Philly and MLB Network).

Your tentative Monday schedule at ​PHLY​:

Let's make it a good one.

Rich Hofmann
Daily Newsletter Editor
PHLY SPORTS