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<\/p>\nAaron Nola has been one of the top pitchers in MLB for over a decade, but the Philadelphia Phillies\u2019 starter took a massive step back during the 2026 season. He finished with a career-high ERA of 6.01 and a 1.35 WHIP, two uncharacteristic stats for a pitcher known for his consistency.<\/p>\n
Even though Nola had a rough season statistically, there are a couple of signs that point to him having a bounce-back year in 2026.<\/p>\n
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Sometimes when pitchers struggle, it\u2019s because they lose their command or ability to throw strikes. That wasn\u2019t the case for Nola.<\/p>\n
Even though Nola gave up more hits and home runs than he typically does, Nola\u2019s command was still strong, which is a key indicator that the 32-year-old still has a few solid seasons ahead of him.<\/p>\n
Nola\u2019s thrown strike rate of 65 percent, which helped him log a walk rate of just 6.9 percent, which ranked in the 69th percentile compared to the rest of MLB. The veteran pitcher can clearly still throw his stuff in the zone; now it\u2019s about slightly reworking his mix to generate more outs.<\/p>\n
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Because of having a high strike rate, Nola still had solid strikeout numbers, too. He also<\/p>\n
As long as Nola continues to register similar strike and chase numbers, he should be in a position for a decent amount of success.<\/p>\n
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Apr 11, 2025; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher Aaron Nola (27) walks off the field after the fifth inning against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images<\/p>\n
Nola has had such a successful career in large part do to his dangerous knuckle curve, and that remained the case in 2025 despite some discouraging overall numbers.<\/p>\n
The pitch itself had an expected opponent batting average of .243 and a putaway rate of 25.4 percent. Plus, the pitch had a vertical drop of 55.4 inches (with gravity) and a horizontal break of 14.8 inches, which was about two inches better than comparable pitches.<\/p>\n
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As long as Nola continues to have a pitch that he can count on at the end of an at-bat or keep a batter on their toes, he should still be able to sequence off it nicely and get outs.<\/p>\n
Will Nola go back to being a Cy Young candidate in 2026? Maybe not. But between his strong command and knuckle curve playing well, the Phillies starter should at least see some improvement and be a solid presence in Philadelphia\u2019s rotation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aaron Nola has been one of the top pitchers in MLB for over a decade, but the Philadelphia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[61189,363,480,99,184281],"class_list":{"0":"post-376909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-aaron-nola","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-philadelphia-phillies","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-strike-rate"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376909","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=376909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}