Aaron Nola feels 'blessed', thanks to his Phillies teammates

"It's a blessing to be on a staff like this."

For 12 seasons, Aaron Nola has pitched for the Philadelphia Phillies. He's twice finished in the top five in Cy Young voting. He has the most strikeouts by a right-handed pitcher in Phillies history (2,038 as of September 9th).

Despite his long-term success as a member of the franchise, Nola has seen much less fruitful times over the past two seasons. The Phillies right-hander posted a 6.01 earned run average in 2025 and, up until July of this season, was sitting at a 6.04 mark.

In 2025, Nola had to deal with an aspect of the game that all players face: injuries. He had been lucky for the majority of his major league tenure to avoid any real trips to the Injured List. But in 2025, that luck quickly faded. A sprained ankle shifted to a rib fracture in a matter of weeks. Both injuries cost Nola months of the 2025 season. 

"It was kinda of a bit of a damper in that I didn't really feel like myself," said Nola. 

The ankle, in particular, took Nola a long time to readjust in his return to the mound. 

"I knew the ankle plays a big part in pitching, but I didn't really know for me it played as big of a part as it did," admitted Nola. He said that correcting his ankle was able to make his "delivery sharper."

Aaron Nola

Now that he's healthy, things have gone better for the veteran righty. 

Since the start of July, Nola has a 3.21 ERA with 75 strikeouts in 70 IP. Through his last eight starts, Nola has a 2.31 ERA. In his last start, he went seven one-run innings against the division-leading Atlanta Braves.

"I can have bullpen sessions and throwing sessions where everything feels good," said Nola on being fully healthy. 

Even when things weren't going well for Nola this season, he stayed positive. Since he was healthy, he knew he had a chance to turn things around.

Nola has had to make several adjustments over the past few seasons due to several rule changes in baseball. This year, he's had to adjust to the strike zone following the implementation of the ABS challenge system. 

The first major change for Nola came in 2023 with the addition of the pitch clock. "It took me just about all season," said Nola. "I feel like I'm not a slow worker, but I'm also not a quick worker. I don't mind the pitch clock anymore." PitchCom has helped Nola, but he would like to see some adjustments to the rules with disengagements. 

Nola's also had to adjust to more talent in the league. He said that young players coming up now are "more ready" than when he first came to the big leagues. He also mentioned the increase in power hitters in the league. 

In terms of overall adjustments, Nola doesn't complicate things. "You're supposed to focus on trying to get the hitter out," Nola said. "I'm going to make adjustments on the fly most of the time."

Most of his in-season adjustments have come during his bullpen days in preparation for whomever he's facing next. 

While Nola's second-half success has contributed to the Phillies' winning, he made sure to complement his fellow starters. "[We] talk about them every year so positively because they do so much stuff that just amazes me all the time," said Nola. 

Rookie Andrew Painter, like Aaron Nola, had first-half struggles, but Nola said the adversity will help in the long run. 

"This is a learning curve for him too," said Nola. "He's going to learn a lot from this year. He's going to grow from his successes and failures this year. He's going to be a better player out of it. 

"Unbelievable guy and teammate," said Nola regarding Jesus Luzardo. "When he had those really rough two outings, he never changed, never got down. He's so positive all the time, which makes him really good in my opinion." 

Nola says that Zack Wheeler is "Probably the best pitcher I've ever played with." Even after thoracic outlet syndrome surgery in which Wheeler had a "massive rib taken out of his body," he's been one of the best pitchers in the National League. That doesn't surprise Nola, however. 

"Knowing Wheeler, he's not going to come back mediocre. He doesn't really settle for that."

Talking about Cristopher Sánchez, Nola can't get over what he witnessed earlier in the season. "50-inning [scoreless] streak, dude. It was [like] a video game watching that guy," raved Nola. 

"What these guys do: Every time they take the mound, you have an opportunity to see something special, and I hope everybody knows that," Nola stated.

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