Aaron Nola Is Fated For A Comeback

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Beneath an Aaron Nola poster on the wall of a northwest Philly apartment, this sports writer once had an old I want to believe printout from the X-Files.

At the time the tiny poster was obtained, a fan gift on a dark and rainy night amid the deepest abyss of the Phillies rebuild, a night of Maikel Franco heroics, the faith that the Phillies would one day emerge from the dungeons of the National League was something akin to Mulder's quasi-religious faith in extraterrestrials. All an acolyte could adhere to for the lifetimes that spanned 2015, 2016, 2017, was the paranormal activity of Nola's knuckle curve every fifth day.

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More than a decade on and Nola did indeed become the franchise pitcher Philly dreamed of, stepping onto the mound to start game 1 of the 2022 World Series, placing third in the Cy Young voting, and becoming one of the franchise's all time pitching leaders in numerous categories. Coming up on 11 years since his July 2015 debut, Nola is by far the longest tenured Phillie (second are JT Realmuto and Bryce Harper, who both debuted for the Phils on Opening Day 2019).

So to see Nola's long walk back to the dugout Monday night, drenched in sweat, looking as exhausted emotionally as physically, has elements of tragedy. Once a hero, head now bowed in defeat, bases left loaded with Pittsburgh runners who would all score before the inning was over, and a 5-0 Phillies lead was evaporated in minutes.

The Phillies have the 30-year-old Nola under contract until 2030. Thanks to Cristopher Sanchez, Zack Wheeler, and Jesus Luzardo, they don't need Nola to be elite anymore. Serviceable is the word that gets tossed about a lot. The belief has always been that Nola's absolute floor was that of a number three or four type pitcher, even if he never replicated his ace form of 2018 and 2022.

Monday night's brutality, which left Nola charged with seven earned runs in just 4.1 innings, spiked his earned run average to a horrid 6.01. It's the second worst in all of baseball among qualifying pitchers this year. But as with much in baseball, like the Phillies 9-19 start, all is not as it seems.

Just like the Phillies in April, Nola has been incredibly unlucky. This is best measured by a statistic called batting average on balls in play (BABIP), which is how often a ball put in play becomes a hit. Over time, the average usually gives a pretty good measure at how lucky hitters have been at finding the holes in the infield. Nola's mark this year is .328. The league average is around .290, according to FanGraphs, which means he's been nearly forty percentage points more unlucky than the average.

Stats which take all those things like BABIP, park factors, offense, specific situations, and general bad luck into account are much kinder to Nola. His "expected ERA" is 4.45, a middling but much nicer number than 6.01. His expected FIP, or fielding independent pitching, which considers errors and defensive lapses, is down to 3.97, which is above average.

And perhaps most telling of all is his strikeout rate per nine innings, which is 9.2, well above average. During Monday night's game, the Pirates swung and missed 23 times in just 4.1 innings, whereas the average hovers around 12 whiffs for a typical 6 inning outing, per FanGraph.

The luck will inevitably correct itself. Nola is not pitching like an ace anymore, but he is above average, and far better than his horrific, surface level stat lines show. The only underlying metric that remains truly concerning is his walk rate. He is giving out more free passes than he ever has in his career, and the more runners on base, the higher likelihood that bad luck will hurt you or a single mistake will be compounded.

A fanbase may deny knowledge, but Nola will inevitably rebound. Amor fati is the Latin saying. Love of fate.