The Royals threatened in the first inning after Merrifield hit a liner off the wall in deep left and Morales walked, but Nola, who entered the game with an 8.44 ERA in the first inning this season, got out of the jam when he set down the next two batters. “He looked like his old self in those last three innings”. All the pitches count.
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Jeremy Hellickson (6-6) allowed one run and five hits in six innings, striking out six.
Kansas City’s Alcides Escobar extended his hitting streak to 12 games, matching his career long, with a double Friday, and Kendrys Morales added a two-run homer. Nola retired 10 in a row after that. He kept the ball down, pitched inside and had movement on his sinker.
“I felt really good”, Nola said.
“Pitch selection is key for me”, Morales said. Alex Gordon’s fly out for the second out probably should have been the last out of the inning.
“I had a lot of confidence in my pitches”.
Nola, 23, has already thrown 96 innings through 17 starts.
Nola missing this one start may actually benefit the Phillies in numerous ways. Nola is vital to this team’s future and club officials had weighed all kinds of solutions to help pull him out of his funk.
“That’s what he relies on; his uncanny command of the fastball has been his strength”, Mackanin said before the game.
All that was secondary, however, to the Nola start.
Meanwhile, the Phillies’ offense, which has experienced a pretty good stretch over the past two weeks, couldn’t get anything going against Royals left-hander Danny Duffy.
Nola appeared to turn the corner on Saturday night, however. Moments later, Mackanin and general manager Matt Klentak huddled in the skipper’s office and talked about a solution.
“We’ll see, we’ll talk about it tonight or (Sunday) morning”, said Mackanin. “We’ll get him back on the mound and he’ll come back after the break”.
Pitching coach Bob McClure raised the possibility that Nola’s recent struggles were caused by “dead arm”, a common but not serious condition that pitchers encounter now and then. So if the Phillies limit Nola’s innings, even by a start now, it may become easier for them to shut someone like Eickhoff or Velasquez down at some point in September.
The Phillies won their first series in Philadelphia since May 16-18. “My body is healthy”.
I’m not going to beat around the bush: this game sucked. Normally Kansas City’s designated hitter, Morales has played right field the last two games because manager Ned Yost wanted to keep his hot bat in the lineup. It’s what they want to do and I understand.
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Nola will stay with the team and the plan is for him to throw simulated action in Colorado when the Phillies finish the first half with a four-game series against the Rockies starting Thursday. The Phillies improved to 36-45, and 13 games behind the Nationals in the NL East.
