The Philadelphia Phillies have been playing much better baseball the last two weeks after a brutal start to the second half.

They are back within arm’s reach of the Atlanta Braves in the National League East race and are building a little bit of a buffer in the NL Wild Card race, holding down the No. 2 spot with a three-game lead, only 1.5 games behind the Chicago Cubs.

If the Phillies are going to keep surging up the standings, they are going to need Zack Wheeler to return to form. His recent struggles haven’t hurt as much given how well Aaron Nola and Andrew Painter are performing at the back end of the rotation, but to reach their potential, their veteran star needs to get back to pitching like an ace.

His extended struggles basically came out of nowhere, but the team is confident that he is close to figuring things out once again. A small adjustment here or there and the veteran righty will be back in business.

Zack Wheeler working through mechanical issues

Wheeler has consistently said he isn’t injured, which points to a mechanical issue being what holds him back. He tried making an adjustment with how he used his legs, but it messed up his off-speed pitches.

More tinkering is needed, and pitching coach Caleb Cotham detailed what could help Wheeler on the mound, as he needs to find easy repetition in his delivery.

“He’s doing it,” Cotham said, via Charlotte Varnes of The Athletic (subscription required), “but when you’re pitching, you don’t want to have to be thinking about how to do something. I think there’s a little bit of, like, it’s conscious now. We want to work hard to get it simple enough that it’s kind of unconscious, so you can completely free up your mind to make pitches.”

Something certainly has to be done because Wheeler has not been the same for the last few weeks. In his first start in the second half, he threw seven strong innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers, giving up only two earned runs.

Zack Wheeler in midst of toughest stretch of career

Since that point, across six starts, Wheeler has an 8.51 ERA in 24.1 innings pitched. He has been hurt by the long ball, serving up eight of them, and has lost command of his arsenal, walking 16 batters. In three out of his last four starts, he has walked at least four batters.

Wheeler is still racking up strikeouts with 31, but that is the only positive with his current form. In his most recent outing against the Seattle Mariners, he had arguably the worst start of his career; he gave up nine hits, including four home runs, and walked five, resulting in eight earned runs.

That certainly isn’t going to get the job done. If Philadelphia is going to compete in the National League, they need Wheeler to rediscover the form he showed through his first 16 outings.