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Proposal: Let’s Give Aaron Nola 2-3 More Post-injury Crap Outings Before Declaring Him the Worst Pitcher Ever
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Aaron Nola made his first major league start since May 14th and oh boy was it rough. He was given a 6-0 lead and then imploded with six earned runs on seven hits, lasting just 2.1 innings while throwing 53 pitches.
Naturally, there was a lot of griping on social. Same old Nola! “Guy hasn’t seen a lead he couldn’t blow.” Stuff like that. Pagan dusted off some old Nola memes he hasn’t used in a while and Anthony SanFilippo had to enter witness protection.
Ironic, perhaps, is that home runs are usually the thing that kill a decent Nola start. He looks fine through three innings then gives up an absolute backbreaker or two right around the fourth inning. That didn’t happen this time. Hooray! In this case, the Nats were slapping singles between the infielders and outfielders, dropping some shallow junk in there and finding the gaps:
They weren’t exactly pounding him. Silver lining, or pathetic deflection? Maybe both.
What I do know is that this Phillies season has been exhausting, the product of high expectations and waning vibes. The fun of 2022 and 2023 wore off entirely with the NLDS exit at the hands of the Mets, so it feels like we’re perpetually on the doorstep of Negadelphia. One thing goes wrong, and whoomp, there it is, like the 1993 Tag Team song.
Here’s the ages-old question: should we be walking the knife’s edge of reaction on a game-by-game basis? For who? For what?
The Phillies went out, got Jhoan Duran and his sick entrance, it felt like some of the energy was coming back to this team, then Zack Wheeler goes down and Nola throws a stinker and we’re back to jumping off the Walt Whitman Bridge again, head first. We had about two weeks of positive zeitgeist, now we’re back in the mud with Paul Reed.
We need to pace ourselves here. Nola hasn’t pitched a major league game in three months. We need at least 2-3 shit starts from him before we declare him the most overrated Phillies starter of all time, with the worst contract of all time.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com