Philadelphia Phillies: Aaron Nola climbing April’s hill

A New Month

Aaron Nola throws four pitches, two and four-seam fastballs, a curve, and a change-up. The four-seamer is the one that comes back to the inside corner against lefties or jams righties and is the pitch he threw most often last season. Many think his curve is his best pitch when it’s working, but basically, when two of these pitches work well, Nola should win. If only one works well or he isn’t hitting spots, he struggles as he did in April.

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As with all pitchers who have four pitches, though, he can battle through. Sometimes, of course, pitches start to work better as the game progresses. This was the story for Nola Apr. 20 in Colorado.

Against Detroit, as May began, the weather outlook was iffy as well as a bit cool. In his past three games, Nola had surrendered five, then three earned runs, then one, in that order. The question seemed to be: Would progress continue?

Early on, the righthander was quite effective, leaning somewhat heavily on curves and change-ups that moved well. Miguel Cabrera looked particularly befuddled in the first inning by a very slow breaking pitch he missed for a third strike and clearly wasn’t ready for.

Nola piled up three of his eventual six strikeouts before the second inning was over.

The Phillies scored a run in the bottom of the second, and the score remained 1-0 until the top of the sixth when suddenly there were just too many Tigers on base. Eventually, one who had walked scored on a bloop to left by JaCoby Jones, who came into the game hitting .137. And Nola was gone in fewer than six full innings for the fourth time in seven starts.

After the game, former Phillies closer Ricky Bottalico, now an NBC Sports Philly commentator, said Nola looked “tired” in the sixth and that his “tempo was off.” He wasn’t giving up missiles, but he didn’t keep people off base either. Bottalico would have Nola use his four-seam fastball a bit more.

However, Nola’s teammates picked him up, exploding for six runs in the seventh and eighth innings, cementing a Phillies victory by 7-3. Nola obviously didn’t figure in the decision. However, he dropped his ERA to 5.06 (2.50 in the past three games) despite giving up seven hits and three walks while gathering only 17 outs.

Aaron Nola, Cy Young candidate, probably found May Day a little too much like his climb up April’s hill.