While the Philadelphia Phillies own one of the top rotations in all of baseball, even their best pitchers have some bad habits to break.
Aaron Nola eased his way through first few innings against the New York Mets before getting shelled in the fifth inning en route to giving up six runs on two three-run bombs.
It was the first time that he had given up two three-run home runs in a start during his career.
While Nola has been very good this season with a 3.62 ERA, he’s been prone to give up big innings that usually derail his outings in a major way. He acknowledged the issue when speaking to the media after the game, a good sign as it could be one of the baseball’s many mental hurdles.
“I’ve just got to eliminate the big inning. Obviously, the fifth inning was a big inning. It spiraled too much,” admitted the righty per MLB’s Todd Zolecki. “I’m just going to keep doing what I usually do, and try to finish as best as I can. Flush this one quick, and get a good week going before my next outing.”
He acknowledged that his pitches started to get away from him during the inning, which was clear to see when just watching the game.
During the contests Philadelphia has lost this season with Nola on the mound, there have been eight innings with three or more runs scored. A few of those were more than three as well.
For comparison, that’s happened to Zack Wheeler just four times this year, three times to Ranger Suarez and five for Cristopher Sanchez.
It may be more common for other pitchers in the league, but expectations are higher for Nola.
In the 2023 NLCS, the Arizona Diamondbacks got off to a hot start against the Phillies ace with a three-run inning in what turned into a 5-1 loss for Philadelphia. He gave up three big innings in the 2022 postseason alone.
The Phillies need Nola at his best if they want to finally bring another World Series trophy back to the city.
Cracks have started to show for the 31-year-old down the stretch. He has a 7.20 ERA over his first three starts of September and batters are putting up a .297/.348/.547 slash line against him.
It’s been a solid year overall for Nola, but he needs to figure some things out on the mound before the postseason starts.
