Thanks in part to managerial wunderkind Mark DeRosa, Team USA found itself in a precarious position entering last night’s WBC game between Italy and Mexico. If Mexico won and scored fewer than five runs (tie breakers be wacky), they would advance to the next round instead of the Americans. Basically, Italy either needed to win, or their pitching staff needed to get rocked. And it just so happened that Italy’s starting pitcher for the game was Aaron Nola.
This caused all sorts of reactions from Phillies
fans, which is not surprising since of all the players on the Phillies, Aaron Nola consistently causes the most bi-polar responses from the fans. (No, he’s not an ace, but he has had an excellent career.)
As it turns out, Nola came through for both Italy and America by pitching five scoreless innings as Italy blew past Mexico 9-1.
A day after I was accused of drawing too much of a conclusion from Bryce Harper’s performance in the WBC (even though I tried to make it clear that I was not actually doing that), I’m now going to overreact a bit to Nola’s performance in the WBC (even though I’m not really actually doing that either).
Based on the comments section on this site throughout the offseason, it is clear that many fans have written Nola off. They feel that he’s pretty much washed up, and the Nola we got in 2025 is the Nola we should expect for the remainder of his contract.
I felt it was premature to toss dirt on Nola’s grave. While he’s been in the league for over a decade, he’s still only 32 years of age (he turns 33 in June), so it’s not like he’s an ancient relic with no hope of bouncing back from a poor season. Even when we look past his somewhat strange odd/even year splits, there was a lot working against him in 2025. He got off to a bad start, then just as he seemed to be rounding into form, he suffered an injury – and then somehow another – that cost him the majority of the season. When he returned, he was clearly not in top shape, although he did end things on a high note with two strong innings in the NLDS.
As for that poor start to 2025, I speculated that it was partly by design. Prior to last year, Nola was one of the most durable pitchers in baseball. Combined with three straight years in the playoffs, meant there was a lot of mileage on his arm. He seemed to make the bargain that by having a slower ramp up to the season, his arm would be fresher come October.
Those poor early season results, combined with his participation in the WBC, caused Nola to make a concerted effort to have his arm be closer to game ready at the beginning of the season. Early returns are promising, as his velocity has been noticeably up in both his Grapefruit League and WBC starts.
If the Phillies can get at least 2024-level performance (3.57 ERA, 3.7 WAR) out of Nola this season, that will be a huge boon to the team. He’d slot in nicely as the number three starter and ease the pressure on rookie Andrew Painter as well as the rehabbing Zack Wheeler.
It’s still early, so it’s possible that this velocity increase doesn’t stick, or he’s left with a dead arm come the second half of the season. But if you were looking for reasons for optimism, seeing one of your pitchers go out and establish himself as a hero for two different countries, is a great sign.
