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PHILADELPHIA — One starting pitcher is on the injured list. Another has rested for two weeks to help relieve a tired arm and precipitous velocity. Another is coming off a rough return from the longest outing of his career.
If ever the Phillies needed Aaron Nola to look like Aaron Nola on the mound, short of October, the opening of a three-game series Monday against the other occupant of a Wild Card spot in the National League was it.
And once Nola stopped looking like his struggling 2023 version, he gave a glimpse at the vintage Cy Young vote-getter, 200-inning horse of the recent past.
Nola went seven strong innings, shaking off a pair of early solo home runs to subdue the San Francisco Giants long enough for the Phillies’ bats to batter them into a 10-4 submission.
A Phillies rotation that has guided the team to Wild Card stability has lately show some cracks in the armor. It has generated enough questions to displace the en vogue sports talk radio debate of if Nola is worthy of a spot in the postseason.
But Nola offered a response Monday.
“I feel like it was important,” he said. “It’s nice to go seven. I hadn’t gone too deep the past several outings, and it was nice to get back out there in the seventh and finish that one off.”
Nola was exasperating early, taken deep by Joc Pederson two batters into the game for the 28th home run he has allowed, the most in a single season in his nine-year career. He allowed four of the first five Giants to get hits, the night after Zack Wheeler had allowed the first five Nationals to reach base safely.
But Nola stanched the bleeding by getting Phillies legend Johan Camargo to pound into a 1-2-3 double play to end the first-inning damage at one run.
“They were on him in the first inning,” manager Rob Thomson said. “The 1-2-3 double play was obviously very huge. And then he just kind of settled in. He gave us seven strong innings.”
Nola wasn’t done getting hit, with Lamont Wade Jr. bashing a ball off the batter’s eye in center to lead off the third. Pederson missed a homer by a foot and a half two pitches later, only for it to hit the Sherwin Williams sign in left and bound to Kyle Schwarber to retire Pederson trying to stretch a single at second.
The outfield assist stopped the Giants’ momentum in its tracks. From that point, Nola would face the minimum until Blake Sabol’s two-out single in the seventh.
“It was huge,” Nola said of Schwarber’s play. “Joc put a really good swing on it on a changeup. Schwarbs made a really good throw. It was one out with nobody on, that keeps guys off the base paths, which is really nice.”
That was the only hit he would allow after Pederson’s wall-banger. He struck out five and walked one, erased on a double play in the sixth.
The bats backed him. Bryce Harper’s RBI single tied the game in the first, scoring Trea Turner, who got a free base on the first of many adventures in outfield perpetrated by the Giants.
Edmundo Sosa followed a 13-pitch walk worked by Bryson Stott of Sean Manaea, last seen around these parts getting racked in the NLCS as a Padres, with a two-run home run to the bullpen in right center.
Eight extra-base hits would follow, including home runs by Alec Bohm, Harper (an inside-the-parker after Wade Meckler’s creative interpretation of outfield play in center) and Schwarber, to the second deck in right.
Thomson’s confidence in Nola hasn’t dimmed, even as he’s been less than stellar of late. He reiterated his confidence in the ace Monday. Nola enjoyed a little confidence boost, too.
“I always want to do my job as best as possible every time I take the ball, and I want to take the ball every time that I’m able to,” Nola said. “If I’m healthy, I get a chance to do that. In my mind, I get a chance to go win a ballgame and put the guys in a good position to win a ballgame.”
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