Nola needs help, Phils provide it
PHILADELPHIA >> The Phillies have been getting plenty of length from their starters in recent weeks, from a rotation that has the best ERA in the major leagues over its last 15 starts.
Surprisingly not among them is Aaron Nola, the NL Cy Young candidate from last year who often hasn’t looked like the same guy in
2019.
And yet, as they proved in a marathon performance Monday night, the Phillies have more ways to win than handing Nola the ball every fifth night and asking for brilliance.
Nola tossed another dud in a rain-delayed affair that took nearly four hours, but the bullpen and a late appearance by the Phillies’ bats came to his aid in a
7-4 win over the Milwaukee Brewers.
Nola had appeared to be putting a rough April squarely behind him. He’d given up just one earned run in each of his last three starts, working into at least the sixth inning each time.
But Monday, in a game delayed 52 minutes by rain and starting with temperatures in the 40s, Nola didn’t have it. He needed
84 pitches to labor through three innings, allowing five hits, four for extra bases, including a home run that Mike Moustakas crushed to deep right to lead off the third. Nola walked three and struck out three.
It’s the third time in nine starts that he has failed to complete five innings. He did so just twice in 60 starts in 2017 and 2018.
Nola’s struggles to go deep are even more startling given that the pitchers around him have unlocked the key. The Phillies lead the majors in complete games (with two, but still). Both are from Zach Eflin, who’s lasted at least seven innings in four of eight starts. Jerad Eickhoff is coming off eight shutout innings in St. Louis, Jake Arrieta has worked at least five innings in each outing and even Cole Irvin tossed seven in his big-league debut Sunday.
It took the bullpen to bail out Nola. Austin Davis, called up Monday with Edubray Ramos landing on the 10-day IL, worked his way into a bases-loaded jam with no outs but allowed just one run, thanks in part to a 5-2-6 doubleplay started by Maikel Franco. Juan Nicasio gave up three hits while getting just two outs, but Jose Alvarez bailed him out with 1 solid innings.
Adam Morgan, who had not worked since May 4, entered with the bases loaded in the seventh and got Moustakas to scream a liner that was caught by a diving Bryce Harper. Thus, Morgan set the Brewers down 1-2-3 in the eighth, getting the win. And Pat Neshek, who also hadn’t worked since May 4, worked a clean ninth, spoiling Lorenzo Cain’s bid to go 6-for-6 to end it.
In all, the Brewers left 16 runners on base.
The Phillies didn’t exactly help Nola when he was in the game. They had hits in each of the first four innings, and two hits in each of the first three. But it took a Nola grounder in the second, with runners on second and third, to get a run in. A second scampered home when Eric Thames declined to catch a routine throw to first, allowing Nola to be safe at first with his first RBI of the season.
Finally the bats woke up, thanks to Cesar Hernandez, who bashed a tworun homer in the fifth, an inning where Brewers reliever Jeremy Jeffress struck out the first two batters but walked J.T. Realmuto before Hernandez unleashed his fourth homer of the season on a first pitch to tie it at 4.
Realmuto delivered the next blow, an RBI double that split the left-center gap in the seventh, finally scoring Jean Segura, who had struck out to start the inning but reached on a wild pitch. Odubel Herrera added a two-run double in the frame.