Aaron Nola’s Seven-Inning Outing Gives Phillies Sense of Hope: ‘It’s Been a While’

In his previous start, Aaron Nola gave up seven runs in 4-1/3 innings against the Pirates. Sunday, in Kansas City, he looked like a different pitcher entirely.

His final line: seven innings, seven hits, three earned runs, seven strikeouts, and most importantly, zero walks. It was his longest outing since Sept. 26 of last season. He threw 98 pitches, 68 of them for strikes, and closed the day by striking out the side. The Phillies lost 5-2 to the Royals, but the box score doesn’t tell the real story. Nola got through a seventh inning for the first time all season. He settled in after Kansas City scored early and didn’t let the game get away from him as it has more often than not this season.

“No walks and getting the leadoff man helped me a lot,” Nola said. “Yeah, it’s been a while since I threw seven.”

His ERA now sits at 5.87, down from 6.04 over his first 17 starts.

“Nola was good,” manager Don Mattingly said. “It was good to see that, good to see him get through seven.

“It’s obviously important that [Nola’s] start turns into a game that you feel like you’re in, you’re not scrambling the whole day. It doesn’t necessarily have to be seven. But if we’re in the game through six, five, seven, whatever that is, then it gives us a lot better shot to be able to put some runs up.”

The frustration with Nola has been loud. Plenty of fans have called for the Phillies to cut ties and move on from what’s left of his deal. That reaction is understandable after two months of five- and six-run disasters. But the Phillies owe him money through 2030 on a deal that pays an average of about $24.6 million annually, and the rotation doesn’t have a ready replacement. Fixing Nola is the only realistic option on the table.

The Phillies are three games back of the Braves with just under a month to go until the Aug. 3 trade deadline. Andrew Painter‘s demotion to the minors already left a hole at the back of the rotation. Cristopher Sanchez earned his own All-Star selection, having one of the best seasons of his career with a 10-3 record, a 2.00 ERA, and 136 strikeouts in 117 innings. Zack Wheeler and Jesus Luzardo have carried their share, too. But a rotation is only as strong as its weakest link, and for most of this season, that link has been Nola.

Dave Dombrowski already has needs lined up for the deadline: a right-handed bat for the outfield, a high-leverage reliever to be the bridge to Jhoan Duran. Starting pitching wasn’t supposed to be one of them, not with three marquee arms already in place. But Painter’s collapse and Nola’s inconsistency have put the need front and center. If Nola pitches the way he did Sunday for the rest of July, Dombrowski can stay focused on the bat and the bullpen.

Every Nola start for the next month carries extra weight. His stats aren’t the only thing on the line. The back end of the rotation rests on his shoulders. He has to mix his pitches better than he has all season. Sunday’s start against the Royals is proof he can still do it. The velocity that once let him blow fastballs past hitters and not have to spot pitches isn’t fully there anymore, and living up in the zone with diminished stuff has been the problem all year. He has to keep the ball down. When Nola works the bottom of the zone, his sinker and curveball play off each other the way they’re supposed to. When he leaves pitches up and tries to blow hitters away high in the zone, hitters have caught up to him all season. His success moving forward will hinge on how effective his curveball is.

“Curveball felt good. Just kind of getting on top of it a little bit more and threw it better than it had been in previous starts,” Nola said. “I had a couple that kind of popped out a little bit, but overall they felt pretty sure.”

Against Kansas City, Nola looked like a pitcher who understood that. Not walking anyone means he was around the zone all day. Seven strikeouts over seven innings means the life on his pitches held up deep into the game, not just the first few innings. Getting through the seventh for the first time all year shows his efficiency was there too, instead of grinding through five innings on 90-plus pitches like so many other outings this season. Mattingly called attention to this after the game.

“He kind of had them off balance all day,” Mattingly said. “Curveball was good today, changeup was good today. It was really good to see him get through seven like that.”

One start doesn’t erase two months of inconsistency, and it doesn’t erase a seven-run disaster in his previous outing. But if we can see this version of Nola carrying the back of the rotation through July, it changes the needs at the deadline and gives a rotation that already has three front-line arms a fourth capable of anchoring a playoff series. The gap between contending for the division and settling for a wild card might come down to whether this start was a turning point or an anomaly.

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