Aaron Nola’s season has shades of Cole Hamels in 2009. Will the Phillies’ trust in him pay off?

There’s a rapidly developing parallel involving the Phillies’ best homegrown starter since Hamels.

Going into Friday's start, Aaron Nola brings a 4.64 ERA, nearly a run higher than his 3.74 career mark.Read moreDavid Maialetti / Staff Photographer

Published Sep. 14, 2023, 4:12 p.m. ET

Let’s play a quick game: Name the manager who said this — and the pitcher that he was talking about:

”He’ll be sailing along with no hits, and all of a sudden, [someone] bloops a ball in and he can’t get out of an inning and there’s four or five runs and he can’t shut the inning down.”

Rob Thomson on Aaron Nola, right?

Try Charlie Manuel on Cole Hamels.

It was the eve of the National League Championship Series in 2009, and the Phillies were set to give the ball to Hamels for Game 1 at Dodger Stadium.

Never mind that he had a 4.32 ERA in 32 regular-season starts, far from his 3.43 ERA in 84 starts over the previous three seasons. Or that he gave up four runs in five innings of a divisional series game against the Rockies, looking nothing like the World Series MVP from one year earlier.

That’s a lot of baggage to lug to the mound in the postseason, even for a starter with Hamels’ credentials. But the Phillies barely blinked, nor did they debate whether to replace him in the rotation.

“I think Hamels can pitch anywhere, any day, any time,” Manuel said in that Oct. 15, 2009, news conference in Los Angeles.

Five days later, after Hamels gave up four runs and got KO’d in the sixth inning of a Game 1 win, Manuel doubled down: “Every time I look at him, I know that he’s capable of just going out there and throwing a shutout.”

And so it went, Hamels pitching poorly in each of his four postseason starts and the Phillies getting all the way to Game 6 of the World Series. Had there been a Game 7, Hamels probably would’ve started at Yankee Stadium, even though he said two nights earlier that he “can’t wait for [the season] to end,” a sentiment that was memorably taken out of context by critics and even teammate Brett Myers.

Pardon the history lesson, but there’s a rapidly developing parallel involving the Phillies’ best homegrown starter since Hamels.

When Nola goes to the mound Friday night in St. Louis for his 30th start of the season, he will bring a 4.64 ERA, nearly a run higher than his 3.74 career mark. He didn’t get out of the fifth inning in either of his last two starts, after which he hung his head so low that the grounds crew could’ve used it to drag the infield.

“It’s not mental,” said Nola, who insists he’s neither preoccupied nor concerned about the effect of a poor season on his looming free agency. “I’ll keep working and having good weeks and staying healthy and try to turn that corner and limit the big inning. It’s definitely not mental for me.”

Nola’s credo, through success and struggle, is to adhere strictly to a between-starts routine that has enabled him to make more starts (172) over the second-most innings (1,048) than any pitcher since 2018. There’s no chance he will waver from that now.

But Nola’s problems have grown familiar. With the bases empty, he has held hitters to a .214/.258/.404 slash line, stingier than even his career averages (.222/.275/.366). Once runners reach, it becomes a track meet. Hitters are slashing .287/.337/.500 with runners on base and .297/.342/.565 with them in scoring position against Nola, up from the .244/.304/.403 and .249/.315/.421 totals over his career.

The most notable difference — and perhaps still the best explanation — is the pitch clock. It was a preoccupation for Nola in spring training and early in the season. With his pronounced left leg kick, he has never been quick to the plate. And with only 15 or 20 seconds to deliver a pitch, he has needed to find ways to slow his mind and focus on executing the best possible pitches.

Nola’s walk rate is up to 6.1% from 3.6% last season and 5.2% in 2021. He has allowed a career-high 31 homers, 12 of which came with runners on base. He has had trouble shutting off big innings, such as the four-run fifth against the Marlins last Saturday night and the three-run second and four-run fifth in Milwaukee on Sept. 2.

“It’s gone that way all year,” Nola said. “Just kind of one big inning that does it in for me.”

The Phillies have tried to tweak Nola’s delivery. To wit: Last month, they reduced and sometimes eliminated the leg kick. Nola has gone back to it recently.

But Thomson’s commitment to Nola, specifically as the Game 2 starter in a best-of-three wild-card series, hasn’t waned. He has said multiple times that he trusts Nola and wants him on the mound in the postseason.

Just like Manuel with Hamels 14 years ago.

It’s not as if the Phillies have much choice. Ranger Suárez is a viable option to start after Zack Wheeler. But Taijuan Walker has a 5.08 ERA in his last nine starts; Michael Lorenzen has a 7.96 mark in five starts since his 124-pitch no-hitter on Aug. 9. Cristopher Sánchez has been a revelation since getting called up from triple A but lacks postseason experience.

In 2009, the Phillies won the pennant in spite of Hamels because Cliff Lee (in the Wheeler role) and Pedro Martínez delivered big starts.

Can they do the same this season without vintage Nola? Maybe. But the road would be much easier if they knew they could expect his typical quality.

“He’s a really good pitcher,” Thomson said. “There’s a lot of really good numbers on the back of his baseball card.”