Take life a mile at a time. I’m sure I’ve heard or read that somewhere. An ad for a car? The Fast and Furious movies? On those t-shirts they sell at gas stations? It’s something car-related. I haven’t been on a road trip in years, and when I did go on them, I really measured them by rest stops, which isn’t as conducive to pleasant-sounding aphorisms (“take life one visit to an Ohio rest stop at a time” just doesn’t have a good ring to it, even though Ohio has really nice rest stops). Anyway, most
baseball players don’t get to take their lives one mile at a time. Their travels occur in big chunks, hopping from one city to the next. The impact of a single mile is hard to see when you’re making multiple journeys by air every month. Alec Bohm and Aaron Nola, though, might be an exception. But not every journey brings you to a happy destination.
Aaron Nola has had it rough for a while now. His 2025 was injury-plagued, injury-shortened, snakebit, whatever terms you prefer. It was to be hoped that an offseason to rest and recover would restore Nola to his previous form —which, yes, could be up and down, but he was highly effective when he was at his best. So far, that hope has been thwarted. Like many of the Phillies’ moundsmen, he’s been a victim of bad luck to some degree, with his xERA (4.67) a little lower than his observed (5.06), and the same for his FIP (4.03 vs. 3.44). A BABIP of .347 explains some of it. But his unspectacular start to the season cannot be blamed entirely on bad luck. In part, it can be blamed on his fastballs.
Nola’s signature has always been the knuckle curve, but he’s made his fastballs—a four seamer, a sinker, and a cutter— do good work for him in the past. But he hasn’t been able to get that same success this season. Even as his curve has returned to form, his fastballs have lagged behind: by fastball run value, he ranks in the 2nd percentile. And yes, it’s still early, and percentiles aren’t so meaningful at this point in the season. But it can be said that very few pitchers are getting less from their fastballs than Nola is right now.
In 2024, Nola’s four-seamer produced a .167 batting average and .316 slugging percentage for hitters. In 2026, it’s .333 and .667. The expected numbers look better (.265, .506), but the regression is still real. He’s allowing a 58.8% hard hit percentage against it too, which would be the highest of his career if it holds. His sinker tells a similar story. His cutter is actually producing results a tad better than in the last two seasons, but on the whole his fastballs have become a problem, fast.
Sometimes the detective work is complicated, requiring judicious, diligent application of the little grey cells. Sometimes the culprit leaves a big, bloody handprint for you. When we look at Nola’s velocity, we see it’s down by about a mile for each of his fastballs, compared to 2024 (and not to 2025, due to the impact of his injury): 91.7 vs. 92.5 for the four-seamer, 86.1 vs. 87.5 for the cutter, 90.8 vs. 91.5 for the sinker. His fastballs were never terribly fast to begin with, and losing an extra mile on them can’t be helping. The movement on his four-seamer and sinker look to be about where they were pre-injury, though the cutter is a different story- at a total of 0.1 inches of horizontal movement , it isn’t really cutting very much, even in the context that his cutters have always had less side to side movement than the average. Given that the performance struggles are centered on the four-seamer and sinker, though the issue here probably isn’t about movement.
It might be about location, though. By the Location+ model, Nola’s location on each of his three fastball types has gone from above average to below average, year over year. If we compare to 2024 instead, since 2025 represented a short, injury-influenced campaign, Nola’s location work has still declined for each of his three fastballs. If we look at Pitching+, a model that takes a more holistic look at a pitch’s characteristics, four-seamer, sinker and cutter have all gone from well above average to just about average, and that’s true whether we compare 2026 to 2025 or 2024. The safest thing to say about Nola’s fastballs is that they’re being hurt by decreased command, and decreased velocity.
And Nola isn’t the only one being hurt by a lost mile. Alec Bohm has struggled mightily to begin the 2026 campaign, slashing a grim .157/.238/.213. His plate discipline is about what it was last season, with his K% and BB% remarkably unchanged. There are some changes under the hood— he’s a lot less likely to swing on the first pitch, and to swing in the zone in general, but those aren’t showing up in the strikeout and walk rates. The more likely explanation for his rough start is what happens when he makes contact. His hard hit rate has dropped by nearly 7.5%. His average exit velocity is down by by nearly 2 MPH. He has barreled the ball just once on 72 batted balls. Why? Again, not a lot of detective work is needed here; let Columbo go take his tousled self elsewhere, let Poirot wax his mustache. Bohm’s average swing speed is down by nearly a mile, from 71.7 MPH to 70.8. Last season, his fast swing rate— the percentage of his swings over 75 MPH— was 18.2%. This season, it’s 12%. Of the Phillies regulars, only Bryson Stott and Justin Crawford are swinging slower, and the two of them take a very different approach at the plate than Bohm does. The lack of power from Bohm’s bat has been an issue in the past, but he was sometimes able to make up for it with good contact. The loss of a mile on his bat speed, however, seems to have put him in a spot where the contact skills can’t quite make up the difference.
It’s still very early, and it would not be surprising in the slightest if Nola and Bohm both improved over the course of the season. Still, the loss of velocity, in pitch or swing, is a worrying sign. The Phillies have promises to keep, and miles to go before they sleep.
