{"id":85710,"date":"2024-09-16T18:35:20","date_gmt":"2024-09-16T22:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=85710"},"modified":"2024-09-16T18:35:34","modified_gmt":"2024-09-16T22:35:34","slug":"aaron-nola-must-regain-form-postseason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/09\/16\/aaron-nola-must-regain-form-postseason\/","title":{"rendered":"Phillies Pitcher Needs to Regain Form Ahead of October"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Philadelphia Phillies pitcher <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nolaaa01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-09-16_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aaron Nola<\/a> needs to <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/phillies\/news\/aaron-nola-allows-costly-homers-in-phillies-loss-to-mets\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">regain form<\/a> heading into the postseason. Nola is having a decent season overall but has had a rough stretch lately. In 30 starts this season, he has a 12-8 record with a 3.62 ERA and 174 strikeouts. 18 of those starts have been quality starts, which is tied with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/salech01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-09-16_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Chris Sale<\/a> for the third-best among qualified National League starting pitchers. Nola has a 4.09 FIP and an 88 ERA- this season. Those each rank as tied for the eighth-best among qualified NL starters. Nola also has a 3.70 strikeout-to-walk rate this season. This past offseason Nola was <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/11\/19\/aaron-nola-phillies-contract\/\" target=\"_self\">re-signed<\/a> through 2030.<\/p>\n<p>One of Nola&#8217;s biggest problems has been giving up the long ball. This season, he has a 1.39 HR\/9 allowed rate, ranking as the third-worst in that category among qualified NL starting pitchers and the seventh-worst in MLB overall. Nola has allowed 28 home runs in 181 1\/3 innings pitched, tied for the fourth-worst in baseball. Furthermore, Nola has a 15.6% home run-to-fly ball ratio this season. Last season Nola allowed 32 home runs in 193 2\/3 innings pitched, and he&#8217;s allowed at least 20 home runs in four of the last five 162-game seasons.<\/p>\n<h2>Phillies Pitcher Aaron Nola Must Regain His Form for Postseason<\/h2>\n<h3>Recent Struggles<\/h3>\n<p>Nola has a 0-2 record and a 7.20 ERA in three September starts. That ERA ranks as the third-worst among qualified NL starting pitchers in September. He also has a 3.00 HR\/9 allowed rate in September, which is the worst among qualified NL starters. Opposing batters have a .368 BABIP against Nola in September, and an .895 OPS against as well. However, he has a 30.4% strikeout rate and a 7.2% walk rate in September so far. That is the fourth-best strikeout rate among qualified NL starting pitchers this month.<\/p>\n<h3>Overall September Trends<\/h3>\n<p>September has been the worst month for Nola throughout his career. Overall, he has an 11-19 record with a 4.55 ERA in 47 regular season outings between September and October. That 4.55 ERA is the worst in a month split for Nola. In those outings, he has allowed 42 home runs, the most he has allowed in a given month split. Opposing batters have a .738 OPS against Nola in September and October during the regular season. That is the highest OPS opposing batters have against him in a month split. Nola has a 4.38 strikeout-to-walk rate in regular season outings in September and October in his career.<\/p>\n<h3>Postseason Implications<\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The way he&#8217;s pitched this last month compared to Aaron Nola and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/suarera01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-09-16_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ranger Suarez<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sanchcr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-09-16_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cristopher Sanchez<\/a> has to be a legitimate candidate to start Game 2 of a playoff series for the Phillies.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Corey Seidman (@CSeidmanNBCS) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CSeidmanNBCS\/status\/1835387380175417573?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 15, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><a  href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/sanchcr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-09-16_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cristopher S\u00e1nchez<\/a><span class=\"player-header--vitals-name\">\u00a0has a very good chance to surpass Nola as the second starter in the rotation in the postseason. <\/span><span class=\"player-header--vitals-name\">S\u00e1nchez has been having <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/06\/07\/phillies-starter-quietly-successful\/\" target=\"_self\">a great season<\/a>, though his win-loss record does not necessarily reflect that. Aaron Nola needs to regain form to hold onto the second starter role. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wheelza01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-09-16_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Zack Wheeler<\/a> and Nola have led the Phillies rotation in the postseason for the last two years. That will probably change this postseason. <\/span><span class=\"player-header--vitals-name\">S\u00e1nchez is red hot, carrying a 1.35 ERA in three September outings. Wheeler-<\/span><span class=\"player-header--vitals-name\">S\u00e1nchez-Nola would be the optimal Phillies starting rotation in the NLDS. It is up to Phillies manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/thomsro99.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-09-16_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Rob Thomson<\/a> to make the right decision.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Jim Rassol-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola needs to regain form heading into the postseason. Nola is having a decent season overall but has had a rough stretch lately. In 30 starts this season, he has a 12-8 record with a 3.62 ERA and 174 strikeouts. 18 of those starts have been quality starts, which is tied [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4566,"featured_media":85754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1071],"tags":[1069,198,28573,6029,683],"class_list":["post-85710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-phillies","category-mlb","tag-aaron-nola","tag-chris-sale","tag-cristopher-sanchez","tag-rob-thomson","tag-zack-wheeler"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4566"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/85754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}