At this rate, it is becoming clearer that Aaron Nola is in the middle of a much-needed bounce-back campaign in 2026, both from an effectiveness standpoint and a physical one.<\/p>\n
The bar was set pretty low last season. It was an injury-riddled year for the soon-to-be 33-year-old, one that led to a 6.01 ERA, a career high and nearly a run and a half higher than his next-worst mark, over just 17 starts.<\/p>\n
Nola looks more like Nola again, and on Tuesday, gutted through another outing despite the losing effort. He turned in five innings over 87 pitches, allowed eight hits and three runs, and struck out five. His ERA now sits at 4.03. It was not his best, but he gave it his all in the Phillies\u2019 10-4 loss to the Cubs.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what stood out:<\/p>\n
HARD-HIT STILL AN ISSUE<\/p>\n
In his last start against the Giants, Nola was rolling for much of the night. Through five innings, he was scoreless and on his way to a quality start. He got it, but not without a blemish. Rafael Devers got him for a three-run homer in the sixth, and it felt like something that had been building.<\/p>\n
Against San Francisco, Nola allowed 19 balls in play. Nine were hard-hit, or 95-plus mph off the bat.<\/p>\n
Against the Cubs, he ran into a similar issue, just not as much. Five of the 16 balls in play against him were hard-hit, and his average exit velocity against was 88.9 mph. Those came across the eight hits he allowed. Traffic on the bases against a pitcher who is not generating a great deal of swing-and-miss is always dangerous.<\/p>\n
The Cubs made him pay there, going 3-for-6 against him with runners in scoring position.<\/p>\n
COMMAND WAS THERE<\/p>\n
A big issue in his last time out was that he kept falling behind and never really had full command of the outing.<\/p>\n
Against the Cubs, he corrected that. He posted a 78 percent first-pitch strike rate and a 67 percent overall strike rate.<\/p>\n
In his last outing, those numbers were 57 and 58 percent, respectively. From the jump, Nola looked much more comfortable with his full mix and had a better feel. Of his first 20 pitches, 17 were strikes.<\/p>\n
And while the outing still got messy at times, he made big pitches in key spots. After back-to-back singles in the second, Nola got a double play. After allowing two runs in the third, Seiya Suzuki came up with runners on second and third and two outs, and Nola struck him out. Then, in the fifth, with two more runners on, he blew a fastball past Suzuki again for another inning-ending strikeout.<\/p>\n
There was more bite there than in the last outing.<\/p>\n
NOLS HEATIN\u2019 UP<\/p>\n
Like any pitcher, Nola\u2019s arm tends to come alive as the weather does.<\/p>\n
It is still only April, but first pitch at Citizens Bank Park on Tuesday came with an 85-degree temperature. Nola, who likes to pitch in short sleeves no matter the weather, had more life on his stuff.<\/p>\n
More than half of his arsenal ticked up by over a mile per hour. His changeup and cutter were just under that mark, but they were up too. His four-seam fastball, which he has been using less as his sinker usage climbs, averaged 92.6 mph, up from 91.5. His sinker, which he threw at a season-high 25 percent clip, jumped 1.3 mph to 91.9.<\/p>\n
The sharper fastball and sinker command also opened the door for his signature knuckle curve to play better. Last time out, he generated almost no swing-and-miss with it, finishing with a season-low 22 percent whiff rate. Against the Cubs, that number jumped to 46 percent.<\/p>\n
‘PEN CAN\u2019T GRAB HOLD<\/p>\n
It had been one of the constants during the Phillies\u2019 recent offensive struggles. Even when the lineup was not scoring, the bullpen was often keeping games from getting away.<\/p>\n
That has changed a bit over the last two losses.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, with the Phillies ahead 3-2, Jos\u00e9 Alvarado allowed a pair of hits and earned runs, and Jonathan Bowlan gave up the go-ahead single.<\/p>\n
This time, the Phillies did not have a lead, but Tim Mayza \u2014 who has generally been reliable and does not deserve a pile-on \u2014 allowed four runs, three earned, on one hit and two walks. The Cubs took a 5-3 lead by the time his outing ended, but the inning really turned on Mayza\u2019s errant throw to second base in a tie game. It probably would not have been a double play anyway, but it kept the Cubs alive with only one out.<\/p>\n
The bullpen allowed seven runs by the end of the night.<\/p>\n
OFFENSE\u2019S SPURTS<\/p>\n
This part felt familiar, but with a different tone.<\/p>\n
Just as they did in the series opener in Colorado, the Phillies exploded offensively in Monday\u2019s first game of this set against the Cubs.<\/p>\n
They scored 13 runs across six different innings. Entering that game, they had been scoreless in 67 of their last 76 innings, a stretch they had not experienced since September 2016.<\/p>\n
Tuesday looked much more like the version of the offense they have shown too often this season.<\/p>\n
Despite the jolt Edmundo Sosa provided on a 442-foot three-run homer, the Phillies struggled to get anything else going. That is what makes pitching with little run support so difficult. <\/p>\n
They did not have much luck, though. The Phillies produced a 93.4 mph average exit velocity against Colin Rea. Of their 17 batted balls, only four fell for hits.<\/p>\n
Outside of their two biggest offensive outbursts this year, the Phillies have labored to get their lineup and rotation working in sync. As the season goes on, if the offense starts to hit more like it should and the rotation keeps pitching more like the back of its baseball card, that gap should start to close.<\/p>\n
Only time will tell.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At this rate, it is becoming clearer that Aaron Nola is in the middle of a much-needed bounce-back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[51887,69,71,70,11350,74881],"class_list":{"0":"post-166033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-aaron-nola","9":"tag-philadelphia","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news","12":"tag-phillies-analysis","13":"tag-phillies-bullpen"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}