PHILADELPHIA \u2013 In a forgettable season for Philadelphia Phillies righthander Aaron Nola, who has been one of the worst-performing starters in the major leagues this season, the Twins almost gave him an unforgettable night. <\/p>\n
Nola carried a perfect game into the sixth inning, retiring his first 17 batters with only two balls leaving the infield before Christian V\u00e1zquez lofted a first-pitch sinker into the left field seats for a solo homer. Yeah, the same V\u00e1zquez who had two homers in his first 184 at-bats. <\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t quite perfection from Nola, who completed eight innings, but it was a quality playoff tune-up as he handed the Twins a 3-1 loss in their series opener Friday at Citizens Bank Park. Former Twins closer Jhoan Duran pitched the ninth inning, earning his 16th save since he was traded to the Phillies at the trade deadline. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt was hard because [Nola] throws everything down, and he dotted that down-and-away very good,\u201d said V\u00e1zquez, who has five hits in eight at-bats since returning from a seven-week stint on the injured list. \u201cThat\u2019s why he is one of the best pitchers in the league. I was cheating on that fastball. It was a [quick] inning with the first two batters, and I knew his fastball was coming to get an early out, so I was ready.\u201d <\/p>\n
Nola, having the worst season in an otherwise solid career, entered Friday with a 4-10 record and a 6.46 ERA through 16 starts, permitted only two hits and struck out nine. Kody Clemens hit a leadoff triple in the seventh inning, driving a changeup into the right-center gap in a two-run game. Nola responded with two strikeouts and a flyout. <\/p>\n
It was only the third time in Nola\u2019s past 10 starts he surrendered fewer than four runs. The Twins accumulated four baserunners all night, including two in the ninth inning. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe curveball, when he has it going, he\u2019s locating it well, the total movement on that pitch \u2014 it\u2019s not one that you see very often,\u201d Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. <\/p>\n
Joe Ryan pitched well, too. He just wasn\u2019t perfect. Ryan, in his final start of the season, gave up five hits and two runs in five innings while striking out nine. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2013 In a forgettable season for Philadelphia Phillies righthander Aaron Nola, who has been one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-184398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}