Phillies

Aaron Nola is All the Way Back

By Kevin Kinkead

Published: Aug 20th, 2026 · 9:33 AM EDT

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The Phillies are HOT.

They’ve now won six in a row with a 4-1 victory over the Marlins on Wednesday night, completing their second sweep in a row.

Aaron Nola was dealing, with one earned run in seven innings:

Aaron Nola twirls his best start of the 2nd half vs. the Marlins 🔔

7.0 IP | 5 H | 1 R | 0 BB | 8 K’s

He’s got a 2.51 ERA in his last 5 starts! pic.twitter.com/jSjfqHWqB8

— Just Baseball (@JustBB_Media) August 20, 2026

Noles threw 100 pitches for only the second time this season.

The knuckle curve once again looked very excellent. He threw it 34 times for 25 strikes and got the Marlins to whiff on 63.2% (!) of of their 19 swings.

Then he went to the changeup as his second pitch of the night, tossing that 20 times for 14 strikes. Both Nola and Andrew Painter have been a lot better since prioritizing the changeup and mixing up their offspeed stuff.

He threw the two seam fastball/sinker and four-seam fastball 17 times each, and touched 94 mph with the latter.

Then he went to the cutter for 12 pitches and got nine strikes out of that pitch.

The only blip on the radar was a Javier Sanoja solo home run in which Nola left a 90.7 mph sinker over the plate, and while he has a penchant for giving up home runs (eight games in a row now with a dinger), he’s really limited the damage lately with solo shots, or early stuff he recovers from. These homers have not been the backbreakers they sometimes are.

Don’t look now, but the Phillies are 4.5 games behind the Braves, who have lost five of six.

WE ARE BACK BABY