Aaron Nola‘s start against the Blue Jays Saturday brought an element of highs and lows. The high was when Nola struck out catcher Brandon Valenzuela for his third strikeout of the game which put him at 2,000 strikeouts for his career. He and just six other current pitchers have reached that level.
Nola then struck out Josh Smith to give him three strikeouts in a row, and four in the last five batters. He finished the game with eight strikeouts and put himself at 2,005 strikeouts.
Four innings later, Jesus Sanchez nailed a 104.8 mph line drive off of Nola’s right knee for a single. Nola was unable to chase after the ball and after attempting a couple of warm-up tosses, signaled to interim manager Don Mattingly that he could not continue. Nola was at 97 pitches in the game and was likely done after another batter or two anyway. The concern was more about the future.
“It was just hurting when I pushed off of it on those warm-up throws,” Nola told reporters after the game. “But obviously planning on making my next start, and hope for a good week this week, and it subsides really quick.”
Nola’s next start is scheduled to come on Thursday against the Minnesota Twins in the Field of Dreams game in Ames, Iowa.
Nola gave the Phillies five innings and allowed two earned runs on six hits and two walks to go with his eight-strikeout game. The Phillies were down 2-0 when Nola exited but came back to take a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the inning.
Jose Alvarado gave up the lead in the eighth when he walked a pair of batters and then gave up a two-run double to Andres Gimenez The game went into extra innings with Toronto getting a 7-5 win in 11 innings. Chase Shugart took the loss when the Phillies had no other option than try to get a second inning out of him after running out of pitchers. Shugart finished with three runs allowed in two innings, but only one of those runs was earned.
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