An outstanding start from Aaron Nola propels Phillies to 3-1 win over Twins | Phillies PGL

An outstanding start from Aaron Nola propels Phillies to 3-1 win over Twins | Phillies PGL

[Music] We welcome you to Phillies Postgame Live presented by Cure Auto Insurance. 3-1 Phillies, Ricky Botelico, Ruben Amaro Jr. And we can talk about the Phillies three runs scored in this victory, their 95 win total. and we will. But this game begins and ends with Aaron Nola’s performance on the mound tonight as he resurrects really last year when he was 11th in the Sai Young voting 2022 when he was fourth, 2020 when he was seventh. He had that kind of outing tonight Ricky Bo and it was uh really impressive. The question is where do the Phillies go from here with that? Uh I think that in all honesty I’m going to be as honest as I can here. The way he threw the ball here, that looked like a Sai Young type guy. That was the guy that we used to love. That’s the guy that came out with fire. I I mean, this is what he looked like. You look at his fast ball, 95 plus miles an hour tonight. That tells me one thing. He was feeling pretty good. Uh the other thing is his change up was really good. His sinker was very impressive. And I thought his sinker got stronger as the game went on. I mean, you’re talking about a guy that went five and two/3s. No, excuse me. Perfect baseball. Yep. And then he makes that one bad pitch. You know what? There’s going to be a lot of people out there saying, “But that’s Nola, the one bad pitch.” I I don’t I don’t know about that. I I just think he threw the ball exceptionally well. And the one thing that he’s going to take out of this is a is a major confidence because because of where he was able to throw his pitches. He used both sides of the plate. He was able to rise above the zone at times and his curveball was flatout nasty. Ruben, you know what the question is that folks at home will be asking as he throws eight innings for just the first time this season. He gives up one run for in a big league game for just the second time this season. And people are going to be asking where’s it been? Why tonight? And what would you say to those who are skeptical? You know, in a lot of ways, I think he’s probably still building. I mean, he was coming off the ankle and the rib and you just don’t know. He’s never been through this. He’s never really been through a season where he’s actually had some real issues with his health and he’s been one of the most durable guys there is. I don’t uh know that he really understands or knows what it feels like to have to bounce back and how long it takes for him to get there. And I mean Ricky’s right. This is about as good a as far as his life on his fast ball, the location on his fast ball. We talked about it in pregame. his fast ball force seam and sinker command was uh electric. I mean it was impeccable really and that was the reason and that’s you know that’s how he gets guys off balance. That’s how he utilizes his change up and curveball. He had an excellent change up too. Really good movement with it down and uh uh with the action on it uh in a downward plane. Uh, it’s nice to see him be able to do that and it’s great for him to be able to come off this game and into the postseason. Like Ricky said, as as long as he’s played baseball, I know that, you know, this is a guy who’s going to be confident with the way he w, you know, wants to be able to pitch and he’s going to feel real confident going into it. I think I think you could compare something here. You think about Ranger Suarez. When Ranger’s throwing like 92, 93 miles an hour, he’s better than when he’s throwing 89 90 miles an hour. Why? Because those extra couple miles means something. Not necessarily on a fast ball, because if you’re spotting that pitch, it doesn’t matter, but on his off speed stuff, I think it makes a tremendous difference. I think that’s the reason why those extra one, two miles an hour on Aaron Nola’s fast ball and the rest of his pitches, they make a huge difference. You get a better bite on your curveball. You get more depth on your curveball. you get a better better movement on your change up and it’s not like that for everybody. I mean you’re if you’re throwing 100 miles an hour, I don’t think it matters if you lose 2 three miles an hour every once in a while as long as you come back up. But I think that’s a big thing for Aaron Nolan and the four seamer up when he had to numbers tonight. You just saw those last two pitches, those last two sinkers if if you watch them. One of them was behind the left-handed hitter came in on the on the inside part of the plate. That may be my favorite Aaron pitch, but that last sinker that you saw him throw that started on the inside corner to a lefty and ends up on the outside corner, that that is a pitch that’s almost unhittable and unreadable from the eye. Ricky and Ruben, look at this list. Aaron Nola is second on the career strikeouts list for the Philadelphia Phillies, a franchise that’s been in business since 1883 in their 143rd year. Go to the bottom of the list for goodness sakes. Curt Simmons, Zack Wheeler, Jim Bunning, Grover Alexander, Curt Schilling, the lefty Chris Short, Cole Hamills, Robin Roberts, the Hall of Famer, and there’s Aaron Nola. No one’s touching Steve Carlton. No one’s touching lefty. We know that. But to be second place on that list of greats, Ruben, what’s it say to you? Someone who grew up Philly’s bat boy, Philly’s player, and knew the history because of your dad. What’s that? That’s incredible, right? It really is phenomenal. Based on where we drafted him, we drafted him to become a quick moving uh starting pitcher. We didn’t not think that he was going to be a number one type pitcher. We thought he was going to be a quick mover from LSU to the big leagues, which he was. and for him to have this type of longevity and consistency and the durability except for this year and now it was 10 years into his career, but the durability that he’s had um to be able to reach that milestone really impressive and uh really in a lot of ways he has outdone the expectation for the man because I I honestly believe that he was going to be a good solid pitcher in the major leagues and he was going to do it quickly but he’s sort of surpassed all the the expectations that we had for him. Yeah, he sure did. We be honest, Minnesota is a 69 win team. Yes, they’re a major league team, but they’re not going to the playoffs. Far from it. Ben Davis said something interesting during the telecast, which is quote, “The stuff he had tonight plays to any lineup. Would you agree?” Yeah, I agree with that. This is This was Aaron Nola with his best stuff and and and that’s about as honest as you could be. I mean, I don’t care who you’re facing. He had a perfect game through five and two/3. And I mean, I I think you look at the quality of the stuff, the movement on his pitches. You could you could grade him right now. You you just looked at him as well as as we did. You saw the sinker had very good movement. You saw it was coming back to the left-handed hitters. You saw the curveball was just actually probably his best of his of the year. Maybe maybe best in a lot longer than that. Uh Ruben pointed out the change up was very good and being able to elevate his four seam fast ball above the zone. You you tell me who’s going to hit all those pitches when he has control of all the combination. The Dodgers, the Brewers, the Guardians, the Blue Jays. Can he can that stuff tonight withstand? Well, I think it can because the combination of the stuff and the location because it’s not just about the stuff as we know and we’ve talked about a million times. You can have the best stuff in the world, but if you’re leaving it in the middle of the plate, it’s getting whacked and guys are doing some damage against it. But he is staying off the, you know, on the edges, off the edges. He was elevating when he had to. He had great snap on his breaking ball and they couldn’t really distinguish whether it was going to be a fast ball or a breaking ball. And uh, you know, the combination of the way he pitched and where he pitched, like I said in the beginning, when his fast ball command is there, it makes everything way, way better. And that’s what we saw tonight. It was really impressive. And the park was jumping tonight because of that pitching performance. Let’s get the thought of the manager of the Phillies. Here’s Rob Thompson post game. Best you’ve seen from Aaron. Yeah, this year. Yeah, he was great. Fast ball command, touched 94. He was 93 in the eighth, so he held his velocity. Landed the curveball, change up was good. Um, yeah, got lead off triple in the seventh from from Clem and worked out of it. So, um, left him stranded. See, he he was fantastic. That’s who he is. Rob, I know you always say you have so much confidence in him. Did you see like this coming? Have you seen him getting better and better or is this I have. Yeah. And and with a guy like Nolles, you know how hard he works, how hard he prepares, the competitor that he is, you know, it’s there, you know. Um, so I I don’t I don’t worry about him at all. I really don’t. after the way this regular season has gone for him, how important is it for him to head into the postseason on high note like this? I think it’s great for him, you know, um he’s dealt with some injuries obviously and and um coming back from it and building back up and uh so that’s that’s a good way to end the year. You said you said in Arizona you were really encouraged by Nola’s start out there. Is there anything from specific he took from that start and improved upon tonight? Uh, well, I think everything was better tonight than it and it was good in Arizona, but I thought it was everything was better. The curveball, the control of his curveball, he threw it behind the count. He he had some swings and misses with it. The change up was really effective on the left-handed hitters. Uh, the fast ball command, the comeback fast ball on the front hip fast ball on the left-handed hitters. He was just better. I mean, that was that was the best he’s been all year. Did you notice him making some pitches when he was behind in the count that maybe he hadn’t? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Change up changing speeds and locating the fast ball. Does this change how you view him going into the postseason in terms of his role or or anything like that? Well, we haven’t set any rules yet, so nothing’s changed. Because you maybe said he could pitch out of the bullpen. Well, I think he could, but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to start either. Sosa since he came back, it’s like on a little bit of a a power streak. Yeah. What do you see from these swings? Seems like he’s almost like one handing the ball. Yeah. Well, he’s so strong and and with his strength and and if you barrel the ball up, you know, it it’ll fly, especially in this ballpark. What have you seen from Alec Bows since coming back from the IIL? Has he made any changes or No, he’s healthy. You know, the shoulder’s not bother him, so the swing’s efficient and he’s using the field and um he’s he’s healthy. That’s the biggest thing. Was there any talk about I mean his pitch count was so low sending him out for the eighth you know I don’t know if there was any discussion about it or was it automatic? No. I went down and talked to him. I said how you doing? He said fine. I said I just asked him if if he had another inning in him and if he wanted it and he said yeah I’m good. No no no issues whatsoever. because you know he battled out of that that situation in the seventh where Clemens gets the lead off triple and then he kind of I felt like ah did he empty the tank here but he said no you felt good. So, was there any thought at all about going back to the night for now? No, no, not this late. Not that not this late in the year. Wanted to leave on a good note. Um, and you know, I think everybody knows how I feel about complete games. I think it, you know, it affects people and he hasn’t been in the eighth inning all year. So, as we continue with Ricky Battalico, Ruben Amaro Jr., And we’ve got Toyota pushed to the playoffs and Milwaukee right now is losing to Cincinnati. Remember, Cincinnati’s got something to play for. So, the Phillies have clinched a buy to the NLDS. Brewers have a game and a half lead on the Phils for the number one seed. And I would submit to you both that if they lose tonight, the Brewers obviously any game they win, they would clinch the top seed. tighten up cuz if they lose tomorrow, it comes down to Sunday for the home field. It’s not even It’s not even just that because Cincinnati’s playing for their playoff lives. The Mets are losing tonight. Cincinnati was a game down on them. Cincinnati owns the tiebreaker in that one. So, after tonight, Cincinnati actually may be the team that’s in the playoffs, but they still have two more games against the Brewers. I mean, this is crazy. Yeah, it it is. And it would be amazing. As long as the Phillies don’t slip up here, they they could keep themselves a chance right until Sunday. It would be an awesome thing. Toyota electrifying moment cuz it was a great pitch. Let me tell you something. The guy makes a good pitch, okay? He doesn’t think number one a one-handed swing is going to go out of the ballpark. Yeah, we’ve we’ve seen the one-handed swing thing for the last I’m going to say it started with Kyle Schwarber about about 3 weeks ago, maybe a little bit more that guys were hitting one-handed swings out of the ballpark. I don’t I don’t know what’s going on, but the ball’s flying. Well, let’s talk about it. Speak right to Rob Manfred. I want you to talk to him right in the Okay, just wanted to make comical. Okay, let’s go to Aaron Nola in the clubhouse right now. Outstanding stuff tonight. Did it even surprise you maybe a little bit that you were able to go that far and as as well as you went uh no but it feels good to go and get back out there in the eighth again. It’s been a while. Uh I feel like since I got off the injury list it’s been I don’t think I even been in the seventh. So it’s good to go deep tonight and um save that bullpen out there a little bit and Duran come in and close that game out. But good game all around by all the guys. How much of a test was that seventh inning, Cody getting away off triple and getting out of it and how I guess reward rewarding it was for you? Yeah, I mean that was good. That was a that was a cool inning. That was a big one. Uh the first two strikeouts were big and then uh that pop up was big. Cody put a good swing on that. You know it um anytime you lead off triple is it’s tough to you know all it takes is a popup. You know pretty much get that guy in. So, I just try to bear down as much as possible and pick my pitches. How much do you think you needed to start like this? Cuz I feel like a lot of your other past starts has been like without that one inning, you know, pretty good. Yeah, you didn’t have that today. It was just a like a whole time start. Yeah. Oh, that Yeah, like like I know that one inning’s kind of been biting me a lot this year and uh it’s good to, you know, kind of roll through the first half of the game with, you know, no runs. um kind of makes things a little bit easier, but uh those early outs definitely helped a lot. Uh early ground ball outs, um the leadoff guy out almost every time was was big. Was it was it too early, you know, the perfect game? Were you thinking about it at that point when Vasquez hits that home run? You’re like, “No, I mean I’ve gotten into the seventh before with that and I I don’t I feel like feel like you got to go through seven to to think about it.” But no, it’s uh but it was good to fill up the zone and, you know, keep pitching out the wind up as as long as I could, long as I did. What would your comfort level be if at all if you had to pitch out the postseason? Pitch out of the bullpen in the postseason? I’ll do whatever, man. I’ll do uh do whatever to to uh geez to uh help the guys win. And I want to I mean everybody’s goal is the same in here. We want to get back to the World Series and and you know win it. But it’s a long road too there. So we got to, you know, it starts with the DS and uh we got to play good baseball. Do you know when the last time you would have pitched out of the bullpen would be if ever? Um in the big leagues? No, I don’t. I’ve never pitched hiking in college or high school or anything like that. Yeah, college my freshman year. First first few starts or first few times uh pitching out ballp velocity the last month really has kind of been able to maintain it. How encouraged are you by that? Yeah, good. I feel like the more the more I throw, the more I pitch um more I keep feeling, you know, healthy and the the fast command usually kind of creeps up a little bit. But um yeah, I feel like over the years to start the season, it kind of it takes a little bit to to get rolling. So I feel like once I came off the I was kind of the same thing. Uh took a little second to get rolling, but hopefully I can keep it keep that. And then Rob said after the seventh inning, you found me down in the tunnel and just wanted to make sure you felt good. What do you remember telling them? Good. Yeah, for sure. I felt good. I knew uh my fish pitch count was decently low. I think I was at 80, I believe, going into the eight. So, my body felt good. Next Level presented by Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City. Next level, most wins in one season, Philly’s franchise history. They’re currently in sixth place, the 2025 Adission, but they’re going to go up with two more wins to a tie for fourth place, 97 with a 93 and 2010 Phillies. And that isn’t bad. 2011’s a different deal. 102 wins. So, a lot of Ruben Amaro on that board. And by the way, who the heck drafted Aaron Nola? Who did draft Aaron Nola? It wasn’t this stuff. Who? I want Oliver did. No, it was Ruben Amaro. Who’s the grilled Ruben? Uh, here’s the other thing I think it bears pointing out again. Aaron Nola, the the one time he gave up one run in a ball game this year was April 27th and he pitched seven innings. That’s the only time before tonight that he had pitched more than six innings in in a game the entire season was April 27th against Chicago. That’s it. So, he has come a long way. I don’t think you really care about what happened in the past right now. I mean, you’re think I think everybody was thinking about Eronola thinking what are we going to see from this guy? Is he going to give us something or give us a taste that he could be in the playoffs? Isn’t that what this game was really about going into this game? I mean, that was my one thought. Can he change anybody’s mind tonight? Right. Well, you tell me because to me it’s Walker Buer, Aaron Nola. Walker Beller is not chop liver. This guy can pitch. He was the last guy on the mound last year for the Dodgers when they won the World. How many innings did we watch Walker Beller pitch? 13. No, I’m just saying last night. Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know what, five, six. Five innings. But that’s all I’m talking about. You don’t need five. I’m just saying he’s given up one run. I just talked about my love for Aaron Nola, so it’s not that. But the fact is, if you got to make a hard decision, Walker Beller has been pitching real well. He’s a bonafide starter, as is Nola. So, you tell me, did Nola make any inroads in your opinion tonight? He’s the poor He’s the poor starter, by the way. Period. Story. It’s very simple. And I think Rubin’s right. I think Rob Thompson was leaning that way the whole time. Yeah. Well, that’s why he when he was asked could he come out of the bullpen, he said he could. Doesn’t mean he won’t. In the division series, if he’s on the roster, then he has to come out of the bullpen. if he’s starting the three lefthanders who are the deserved guys. I don’t think that I don’t think that Nola steps forward. I don’t know that he pitches in in as a starter, but I do believe that if they need him, he will pitch out of the bullpen. I don’t think we see Aaron Nola in the NLDS. I hope we don’t because because we don’t too then we can utilize him, you know, in in the NLCS. Number four starter. Arch, let’s go back to the clubhouse. talked to the catcher JT Realm Muto postgame seen some pretty good starting pitching over the last three games and Aaron tonight like what did you see out of him tonight? Uh really just everything was working. I thought um that was one of the sharpest I’ve seen him this season. Curveball had good bite to it. Um the change up was as good as I’ve seen and then he was locating the fast ball well. So um just had everything going for him. How good do you feel for him just to you know it’s been a rough year for him. he’s been hurt and you is not what he wants it to be, but just to see him kind of cap his regular season this way. How good do you feel for him? Yeah, it was great to see um you know, Anola, he’s a competitor, so um this season obviously wasn’t the one he wanted, but to see him go out on top and throw a really good start, take some amendment to the postseason, it’s uh it’s really good to see. Obviously, you don’t make these decisions, but uh how much confidence would you have in Nola coming off this and a postseason start if he was needed? Oh, very much. Yeah. I mean, Nola’s who he is for a reason. He’s been really good for us for a long time. So, especially coming off a start like that. Um the confidence is definitely high with him. He’s moved up to number two on all time strikeouts. You’ve caught a lot of those strikeouts. What is your what is your perspective back there when you see him do where it’s called or where they get someone out to swing? Uh just I mean just shows who he is as a pitcher. He’s just a complete complete pitcher. He’s never been the most overpowering guy, but being able to mix, command the strike zone, throw multiple pitches in different counts. Um he’s just his whole career he’s been that He’s everything you want in a pitcher as far as being able to work through a lineup, keep guys off balance, and obviously strike a lot of guys

What a performance from Aaron Nola. He was perfect through 5.2 innings, and only allowed two hits over EIGHT strong innings, striking out nine in his best start of 2025. He passed Robin Roberts for second in Phillies franchise history for most strikeouts and helped the Phils to a 3-1 win on Friday night. Hear from Aaron, Rob Thomson, and J.T. Realmuto, as well as a very impressed Phillies Postgame Live crew as the season winds down. #Phillies

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