Philadelphia Phillies at Detroit Tigers

Maybe Phillies manager Don Mattingly had a premonition, but perhaps he was simply going on the clutch hitting track record of catcher J.T. Realmuto. However, hours before Realmuto’s two-out, three-run double in the sixth put his team in control of Sunday’s 5-0 win over the Tigers, Mattingly had high praise for Realmuto. “He gets a lot of big hits," Mattingly said. "He’s hitting the big home run, and I’m not talking about ninth inning, two outs. I’m just talking about a part of the game that he gets a few guys out there and he gets them in.” Realmuto also caught a pretty good game for Philadelphia right-hander Zack Wheeler, who allowed just two singles and two walks over six scoreless innings, while striking out 10 and throwing 96 pitches. Wheeler will take a 10-1 record and 2.13 ERA into the All-Star break. “To me, he’s just a tremendous pitcher,” said NL All-Star Game starter Cristopher Sánchez on Saturday after beating the Tigers, 4-2, to improve to 11-4 with a 2.62 ERA, “and one of the best pitchers in the league since seven years back. He’s just one of the best to do it, and look how he’s been doing it after major surgery. Some thought he wouldn’t be able to do what he’s been doing for us." Wheeler is on quite a roll after his last two starts. He’s allowed just one run on six hits over 13 innings, while striking out 24 with only two walks. Those are great numbers by any measuring stick. “Wheels, obviously, was being Wheels,” said Mattingly. “Doing his thing and getting us out of the gate with zeros.” The Phillies took a three-game series from Detroit by snapping its six-game winning streak with Saturday’s win and then blanking the hot Tigers on Sunday. They have been 46-25 since snapping a 10-game losing streak April 25 and done much to impress Mattingly, who replaced Rob Thomson as manager on April 28, to get the winning ways started. But this one -- in which they beat two-time reigning Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal -- was special. “This, for me, is probably our best game of the year,” said Mattingly. “I mean, so many things went the way we wanted them to go. … Our guys did a great job of battling Skubal.” Consider that neither Kyle Schwarber (32 homers) nor Bryce Harper (20 homers) hit a homer in this series. But both constantly helped produce runs with hits and doing the little things. Harper’s lead-off single in the four-run sixth came on a 10-pitch at-bat that ended Skubal’s outing at 93 pitches. Harper faced 35 pitches in five at-bats. And a