Aaron Nola Saw An Elite Run Come To An End
The Philadelphia Phillies have turned their season around after a slow start.
It was always going to be the players that needed to perform better for the Phillies to get back in contention.
That is exactly what has happened.
Pitcher Aaron Nola has been one of the steady forces for the Phillies this year.
While his stats have not been Nola-caliber, he has at least been reliable every five days.
According to Scott Lauber, Wednesday’s outing against the Cubs was the first time Nola did not complete six innings since April 11.
First time since April 11 that Aaron Nola didn’t complete six innings. It was the longest streak in the majors and the second-longest of his career. Nola went five innings and gave up four runs on seven hits and three walks. #Phillies lead 8-4 in the seventh.
— Scott Lauber (@ScottLauber) June 29, 2023
His run of consecutive starts with 6+ innings was the longest in the majors.
The Phillies can always count on Nola to go out and take the ball every fifth day.
But, they just hope he will return to All-Star-caliber production like he has so many times.
During the season, Nola has made a league-leading 17 starts and thrown 105.2 innings.
He has an ERA of 4.51 and 102 strikeouts with 29 walks.
This is Nola’s ninth season in MLB and he only has had an ERA over 4.00 twice.
One issue for Nola is that he is not striking batters out at the rate he normally does.
He has had a K/9 (strikeouts per nine) of over 10.0 in each of the past four seasons.
So far this year, Nola’s K/9 is 8.7.
Getting him back to missing bats at a high rate will be something the Phillies coaching staff should look into.
If the Phillies want to make another deep playoff run and compete for the NL pennant, they will need the best of Nola.
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