Aaron Nola has his best start of the season in the Phillies’ series-opening win vs. Mets

With the Phillies protecting a one-run lead over the New York Mets in the sixth inning Monday, Tanner Banks was ready to go in the bullpen.

Aaron Nola had already turned in five scoreless innings. But the right-hander has been haunted by homers all season, and the Mets’ two most prolific home run hitters — Juan Soto and Pete Alonso — were getting loose in the on-deck circle.

It would have been reasonable for manager Rob Thomson to lift Nola for Banks right then, his pitch count at 80, to ensure he departed on a high note after a string of tough starts.

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But Thomson, who has been steadfast in his confidence in Nola — even as his ERA ballooned to 6.78 entering Monday — left Banks right where he was.

“He just threw so well tonight,” Thomson said. “I mean, he kept the ball down. … The curveball was sharp. I thought he was really good, and we had Banks ready to go, too. If there was any type of trouble, we would have shut it down.”

There wasn’t any trouble. Nola retired Soto, Alonso, and Brandon Nimmo in order, recording his sixth and seventh strikeouts of the night, and departed the mound to a standing ovation. His performance helped the Phillies secure a 1-0 win to open the series against the Mets.

As Nola limited the Mets to just three hits, he turned to his changeup 22% of the time, a higher than normal clip for him. He only threw one cutter, which struck out Soto in the sixth.

“He’s that type of hitter where sometimes you got to think out of the box a little bit,” said catcher J.T. Realmuto. “And I knew he hadn’t seen one yet, so he wasn’t going to be looking for it, and I just trusted Aaron to execute it.”

In his first four starts since returning from the injured list on Aug. 17, Nola had an 8.38 ERA. After his latest meltdown — in which he allowed five earned runs before recording a single out against the Milwaukee Brewers — Nola said he needed to focus on getting the leadoff hitter out.

He accomplished that mission on Monday. Nola retired the leadoff hitter five out of six times. Though he walked Brett Baty to lead off the fifth, he later picked him off at first to end the inning.

“Commanding the fastball, commanding the changeup, too,” Nola said. “I left a couple curveballs over the plate that they hit for a couple of base hits. But other than that, just kind of winning the counts. I had two walks but feel like, other than that, kind of controlled the zone better than I had last game.”

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Mets rookie starter Nolan McLean had dominated the Phillies the first time he faced them at Citi Field last month, holding them to four hits over eight scoreless innings. The Phillies matched that by the second inning on Monday. In total, they tagged McLean for seven hits, the most in any outing of his young career. The Phillies were the first team to face McLean twice, after he debuted on Aug. 16.

“I thought we had better at-bats against him, and we laid off,” Thomson said. “We stayed within the zone for the most part. He had really good stuff again tonight, but I thought our at-bats were better.”

Still, the Phillies didn’t capitalize as much as they could have. They scored their only run in the second inning on consecutive singles from outfielders Max Kepler, Harrison Bader, and Nick Castellanos, who picked up the RBI.

But they ran into extra outs on the bases and didn’t come through with runners on. Bader went 3-for-4 but was thrown out attempting to stretch a single to a double in the second, and he was caught stealing in the fourth. The Phillies finished 1-for-4 with runners in scoring position and left seven runners on base.

After a scoreless seventh from David Robertson, Matt Strahm pitched the eighth. He walked Francisco Lindor to put the tying run aboard, but a diving grab by Bryson Stott on a ground ball from Soto ended the inning.

The Mets put the go-ahead run in scoring position against Jhoan Duran in the ninth after the Phillies closer allowed a single to Alonso and a double to Mark Vientos.

Duran battled back to strike out Jeff McNeil and Francisco Álvarez to strand both runners and earn his 28th save of the year. He blew a 101.9 mph fastball by McNeil and then got Álvarez to chase three straight curveballs.

“If anybody can do it, it’d be him,” Realmuto said. “Obviously, it’s not an ideal situation to be in there, not what we wanted. But obviously we also had a lot of confidence that he could get the job done.”

The Phillies shrank their magic number to win the National League East to 11.