Aaron Nola reiterated it a bunch of times. He doesn’t want what happened in the sixth inning of Saturday’s 9-0 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers to be considered an excuse.

“I really don’t want to talk too much more about it,” he said. “We just lost. I didn’t have a great start and I didn’t put the team in a position to win, and that’s all that matters.”

He’s right. The Phillies did lose. He didn’t have a great start, although his final pitching line was exacerbated by a meltdown of a relief appearance by Jeff Hoffman. But no, Nola didn’t put his team in a position to win.

Nola could have had as great a start as he did in his last outing, when he took a no-hitter into the seventh inning, and still not put his team in a position to win, because when you score zero runs, you can never win a baseball game.

Nevertheless, the most notable thing from this ugly defeat that snapped the Phillies’ six-game winning streak was what happened in the sixth inning when the ump show took over. Nola, like most pitchers in baseball, looks for way to slow down a game during the pitch clock era. The most common practice is asking for a new baseball. Sometimes it’s legitimate – pitchers have been asking for new baseballs for years. Even before the installation of the pitch clock. Baseballs are like snowflakes. Every one is different and they even change as a game goes on.


“You want to rub up a ball, just like every game,” Nola said. “Sometimes they’re chalky. Sometimes they’re slick. Sometimes the seams are bigger than other seams and sometimes they’re smaller. It all depends.”

But sometimes asking for a new ball is intentionally done to buy an extra couple seconds. Nola has admitted to doing this since Spring Training. It’s nothing new. And he’s not the only one. Pitchers all across baseball have used it as a tactic.

When there’s nobody on base and the pitcher is in the windup, there’s no way for them to ask for a timeout and the only way to reset the clock or buy themselves a few seconds to gather themselves is to burn a mound visit, which they don’t want to do with nobody on base, because they only get so many a game for the team.

Each batter can request a timeout during an at bat. But a pitcher can’t ask for a timeout. He would be assessed an automatic ball. If there’s a runner on base he can use one of his two “disengagements” allowed per at bat to step off the rubber. But with nobody on base, there are no disengagements allowed.

It’s an inconsistency that baseball should address, although the powers that be are still in the stage of shoving their rules down everyone’s throat until there’s a submission, that they’re not worried about what they may have gotten wrong.

So, what happened, exactly?

In the top of the sixth, when the game was still within reach (3-0 LA), Nola had two outs, nobody on base and a 2-2 count on David Peralta, who had homered off him in a previous at bat.

Nola asked for a new ball, when third base umpire Bill Miller told him enough was enough.

A pool reporter was sent to the umpire’s room after the game to get an explanation from Miller. Here was that exchange:

Q: Can you walk us through what rule Nola was breaking (if there is a rule Nola was breaking)?

“Yeah, we have regulations with the pitch clock. Obviously it’s very sensitive — when the pitch clock goes off, and whether or not people are going to circumvent the rules that are in place. Nola did a good job the first two to three innings. And then, as the game went on, he started to throw more and more balls out. Where we felt, he was trying to reset the clock. Which is an attempt to circumvent the pitch clock regulations.”

Q: Which specific regulation was he was breaking? Was it delay of game?

“It’s up to the umpire’s judgment. If any player, at any time, is attempting to circumvent the pitch clock regulations.”

Q: What made you think he was circumventing the pitch clock regulations? Was it that he was throwing the balls out more as the game went on?

“Yes, and the last thing — he caught the ball. He took two steps, he turned around, and said I need a new ball. He never felt the ball until he took it out and wanted another one.

Q: Has this been an issue with a pitcher in any previous games for your umpiring crew this season?

“Yes, we’ve had an issue before. With a pitcher with the San Francisco Giants, (Alex) Cobb, who was doing the same exact thing: throwing balls out to reset the clock, so they could get more time to get their pitch off.”

OK… a few things here that should immediately piss you off and show you this was an ump show of the highest order:

1. “Obviously it’s very sensitive…”  Really? You don’t say? Baseball is on edge about this rule? How can that be when all we hear from the marketing parrots (including those in the media) is about how wonderful it is and how it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to the sport?

2. “Nola was good the first two or three innings…” and “It’s up to the umpire’s judgment.” Oh, so you mean you were looking for it? You were looking for a chance to have a “gotcha moment.” You weren’t simply umpiring in the flow of the game. There wasn’t actually a rule that was broken here. You were waiting for a chance to ding him. Guess this had nothing to do with his comments earlier in the week about the pitch clock being faster at Citizens Bank Park than anywhere else in the league followed by Matt Gelb’s outstanding report in The Athletic that proved Nola’s point, right?

3. “He never felt the ball and wanted another one…” Au contraire, Bill Miller. Au freaking contraire:

So, now you are completely making stuff up. More evidence that this was premeditated and not just an adjudication made in the game.

“Nobody said a word about it until today,” said Thomson after the game. It was worth noting because normally MLB would warn teams in advance if there was going to be a crackdown on what it perceived was an effort by teams or players to circumvent rules – for example, when they started checking for “sticky stuff” abuse by pitchers. Teams knew it was coming. This just came out of left field.

“I don’t know how yo can tell if a pitcher is throwing out a baseball because he doesn’t like the feel or he’s trying to slow (down the clock),” Thomson said. “Unless you are a mind reader. Kreskin.”

Thomson immediately came out of the dugout to argue with the umpires.

Nola got Peralta to fly out on the very next pitch to end the inning, and then things unraveled in the seventh inning, but in the moment, this is a problem that baseball has brought onto itself and needs to fix. And I’m not talking about getting rid of the new rules, but rather getting a handle on how they are implemented. Because, these umpires are out there running things like it’s the wild west.

What shouldn’t be lost in this hubbub is the absolute weirdness of Nola’s season thus far. He’s been incredibly inconsistent from one start to the next. He’s walking more guys. He’s giving up home runs every game.

And while the homer Saturday was just a solo shot and really wasn’t that impactful, those numbers are staggering. How can it be that you are pitching at Cy Young levels when it comes to WHIP and opponents batting average yet in the same span have a 4.19 ERA and a .500 record?

It’s almost befuddling.

And yes, Nola’s final pitching line looks far worse than he pitched, but four of those runs are certainly on him. The other two were the result of Hoffman’s inability to throw strikes until he grooved one that J.D. Martinez planted in the left field seats.

But that doesn’t matter. Bad luck or not, he’s got to find away through certain situations. Things he was able to do before that he’s not seemingly able to do with any consistency this season.

It wouldn’t have mattered Saturday. The offense took a powder and decided to not show up at all, but going forward, the Phillies can’t get to where they want to get to without Nola being Nola. And right now, he’s only himself most of the time, and that’s not good enough.