Aaron Nola has seen it all with the Phillies — except the playoffs. And he wants in on the fun.

Nola would arrive at the Phillies’ first postseason appearance since 2011 with a perspective all his own.

Aaron Nola made his major league debut for the Phillies in 2015 and has seen the full arc of the team's teardown, rebuild, and repeated attempts to finally end the longest active playoff drought in the National League.Read moreJose F. Moreno/ Staff Photographer

Published Sep. 9, 2022, 4:39 p.m. ET

The drought will end. Eventually. Maybe even within the next three weeks. And whenever the Phillies finally do lock up a playoff berth, it will mean something different to everyone in the organization.

To Bryce Harper, it will signal a return to the national stage alongside many of baseball’s other superstars. To Jean Segura, it will mark a chance to experience the playoffs after more than 1,300 regular-season games. To John Middleton, it will be the payoff for authorizing a $240 million payroll to get back into the tournament and try to win his bleeping trophy back.

And then there’s Aaron Nola, who would arrive at the Phillies’ first postseason appearance since 2011 with a perspective all his own.

Nola got drafted by the Phillies in 2014. When he made his major league debut on July 21, 2015, Ryan Howard batted cleanup. His second start came one day after Cole Hamels’ no-hitter at Wrigley Field. Nola started Chase Utley’s last game with the Phillies. He pitched for teams that lost 99, 91, and 96 games in his first three seasons. He’s had four managers and five pitching coaches and outlasted three front office regimes.

The red pinstripes are practically tattooed on Nola’s body. He has been here through the entire arc of the Phillies’ teardown, free agent-fueled rebuild, and four consecutive September swoons in which he was as complicit as anyone. He’s the link from Howard to Harper, from Ruiz to Realmuto, and also the constant, taking the ball more often than any starting pitcher in baseball since 2018.

But Nola has made more starts without getting to the playoffs (198 entering Sunday) than all but one active pitcher: Baltimore’s Jordan Lyles (209). Imagine, then, after all the changes that have swirled around him, how it would feel for the 29-year-old right-hander to finally see October from the other side.

“It’s definitely going to make it a lot sweeter,” Nola said in a wide-ranging conversation this week. “When I came up, I mean, it was a lot of fun coming to the field. I was still a pretty young dude. But those were teams that you know aren’t going to be in it in September. Being up here on some 90-something-loss teams, and then to experience this, it’s pretty sweet for me. You hope we can keep this going and make the push.”

Seven years ago, Nola knew the Phillies had no chance. They were clinging to the last vestiges of a golden era. Hamels got traded to Texas 10 days after Nola’s debut. Utley got dealt to the Dodgers 19 days after that. Howard’s contract finally ran out after 2016. Carlos Ruiz got traded late in the 2016 season.

Nola heard stories of what it was like in their salad days. Citizens Bank Park competed with the Jersey Shore as a top summer destination — and fans stuck around well into autumn. The Phillies sold out the joint. Rally towels were standard. Nola, who played in front of packed houses in college at LSU, thought he could relate. But Friday nights under the lights in Baton Rouge couldn’t compare to this.

“I came up to see those dudes that won a World Series and had been so successful in their careers, and then they went to different teams and were still successful, making the playoffs and stuff,” Nola said. “Super cool to see how they worked and how they approached the game. It made you want to experience that here.”

But Nola also knew those players were on their way out. It would be years before the Phillies would contend again. Once they did, they figured Nola would be part of their core.

So, Nola endured the losing while also learning to pitch at the major league level. He always had precision command and a knees-knocking curveball. By 2018, he was among the best starters in baseball, posting a career-best 2.37 ERA in 212⅓ innings and finishing third in the National League Cy Young voting.

The Phillies spent nearly half a billion dollars in the “Stupid Money” offseason of 2018-19. They signed Harper, Andrew McCutchen, and David Robertson, traded for J.T. Realmuto and Segura, and stated their intention of competing for a playoff spot.

Not coincidentally, before the 2019 season, Nola signed a four-year, $45 million contract extension that includes a $16 million club option for 2023.

“It showed [ownership] was serious about it, right?” Nola said. “This team’s gotten better and better each year.”

There isn’t much doubt that the Phillies will, at a minimum, pick up the option.

“I don’t want to make declarations at this point,” president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said, “but I’d say if he keeps pitching the way he is and he’s healthy that there’s a pretty good chance of that.”

Nola hasn’t duplicated his breakthrough 2018. But he’s been both solid and durable. Since 2019, he has a 110 ERA+, meaning he’s 10% better than the average major league starter. He has four 200-strikeout seasons, tied with Jim Bunning and Grover Cleveland Alexander for second-most in Phillies history. (Only Steve Carlton has more.) And he’s a workhorse, logging 202⅓ innings in 2019, 180⅔ last year, and 177⅓ with the potential for five more starts before the end of the season.

The knock on Nola is his tendency to struggle in September. For years, the Phillies have leaned on him to help push them into the playoffs, and he’s come up small. Witness his 6.51 ERA in his last five starts in 2019 and 6.19 mark in his final six starts last season.

As a potential remedy, the Phillies built in extra rest for Nola. They gave him eight days off around the All-Star break and six before his most recent start. Sixteen of his 27 starts have come with at least one additional day of rest. The Phillies have every Monday off in September, so there will be opportunities for Nola to take a breath.

Nola has been brilliant at times this season. He struck out 10 in 8⅓ scoreless innings July 17 in Miami, gave up one run and struck out eight in eight innings Aug. 13 against the Mets, and tossed an 11-strikeout shutout Aug. 25 against Cincinnati. After getting hit hard for eight runs in four innings Aug. 30 in Arizona, he bounced back with 10 strikeouts in 6⅔ innings Tuesday night against the Marlins.

But with ace Zack Wheeler still on the injured list, the Phillies need Nola to reverse his September trend.

“Physically, I feel fine. I feel really good,” he said. “Sticking with my routine and backing off things I need to back off during the week, ramping up when I need to ramp up, and just trying to keep my delivery in sync. That’s it for me. Keep my walks down, make pitches when I need to with guys on base, and give the guys as good a chance as I can to win. That’s been my mentality all year.”

And if it leads to the Phillies’ long-elusive playoff berth?

Nola, a possibility to get the ball in Game 1 of a playoff series, has given it plenty of thought.

There’s a panoramic photo outside the Phillies’ spring training clubhouse in Clearwater, Fla., that captures the moment they won the World Series in 2008. The fans are standing, fireworks are erupting, and the bell above right field is ringing. Rhys Hoskins often references the picture. Like Nola, he’s a homegrown Phillie. And like Nola, he can only imagine what a moment such as that one would be like.

“A lot, man. I’ve thought about it a lot,” Nola said. “I haven’t won a championship since ... high school. And I haven’t been to a playoff since college. That was sweet, don’t get me wrong. But the work you put in in the major leagues, all year round, I know it would be that much sweeter. You want those juices to be flowing and adrenaline running through your body. Getting butterflies. That’s good, man. We still want that.”

Nola recently asked Robertson and interim manager Rob Thomson about coming to Citizens Bank Park with the New York Yankees for the 2009 World Series. Their recollections aligned with everything Nola has ever heard from Phillies of yesteryear.

“They said it was crazy, man,” Nola said. “We want to see that. Really bad.”

Nola has waited as long as anybody.