Philadelphia Phillies Ace Stays in Cy Young Race

The Philadelphia Phillies were delivered a tough pill to swallow after they watched the Atlanta Braves celebrated their sixth consecutive NL East divisional title on their home field at Citizens Bank Park.

Their 4-1 loss on Tuesday night was the deciding blow that gave the 2023 crown to the Braves.

The Phillies get Wednesday off before heading into a road series against the last-place St. Louis Cardinals, with the aim of getting this bad taste out of their mouth.

Another thing that could help the team is that their ace Zack Wheeler is still in the NL Cy Young race according to MLB.com.

"Voters were asked to rank their top five in each league. Pitchers received points on a 5-4-3-2-1 scale -- five points for a first-place vote, four points for a second-place vote and so on," they wrote about their latest poll.

Wheeler came in fifth place, despite getting three of the 39 first-place votes.

His advanced metrics give him a good case to stay in contention during the final month of the season. He leads all Major League pitchers with a 5.4 FanGraphs WAR statistic, has the National League's third-lowest FIP of 3.17 and the lowest WHIP (1.07) of these contenders.

It will likely be an uphill battle for the ace as he sits with an 11-6 record and has an ERA of 3.70.

Those numbers normally disqualify starters with the voters, who have started to factor in advanced metrics more, but still weight pitcher wins and ERA heavily in their decision making.

Still, Wheeler remains in the picture, sitting as a Top-5 finalist as it currently stands, something he's only been able to accomplish one other time in his career.