The Phillies are heading into the final stretch with real uncertainty in the pitching staff, but Aaron Nola has pitched his way back into the conversation and Alec Bohm has found a mechanical fix that’s helped him turn his season around.
Jesus Luzardo landed on the IL with shoulder inflammation, and setup man Jonathan Bowlan exited Thursday’s game with groin tightness. Luzardo is eligible to come back on the final day of the season, though the Phillies are unlikely to use him then because they want to keep him lined up for the wild card series.
With no time to rebuild his workload, Philadelphia is leaning toward using him as a late-inning lefty in October. That leaves manager Don Mattingly without clear answers for the bullpen spots ahead of closer Jhoan Duran, which is never a comfortable place to be this time of year.
Nola, though, has given the Phillies something to lean on. He has been throwing the ball well enough to re-enter the team’s postseason pitching plans, and the shape of his season now comes down to how often he can lean on his spin and changeup.
His sinker, which was getting hit hard at .368 with a .701 slug, has been cut back from 19.5% to 15.9%. His changeup use has climbed more than any other pitch, jumping from 14.2% to 20.6%.
And his knucklecurve has stayed sharp: hitters are batting .143 against it over this 10-start stretch, down from .193, while the pitch is carrying its lowest batting average against since 2018 and its highest usage rate since 2019 at 33.1%.
The formula for Nola is straightforward. When he can get chase swings on the curveball, he’s effective. When he can’t and has to live in the zone with his fastballs, the results are much less forgiving.
That’s what makes him such an unusual strikeout arm. He’s never thrown a pitch 97 mph, and his top velocity this season has been 95.4 mph, yet he can still stack up strikeouts without relying on power.
Bohm’s season has been messier. The Phillies infielder was dealing with a rough year that included a lawsuit against his parents over financial management, later settled, and by mid-August he was down to .227 with a .288 on-base percentage, both career lows for the impending free agent.
On Aug. 10, Mattingly gave him the night off against St.
Louis righthander Hunter Dobbins, with Kyle Schwarber starting at first base and Bryce Harper serving as the DH.
That break turned into a useful reset. Bohm spent time in the cage with hitting coach Kevin Long, and the two made a notable change to his setup: instead of holding the bat flat over his shoulder, Bohm raised the barrel.
Long had noticed that the flatter position was leading Bohm to wrap the bat behind him during his load, adding extra length to the swing. The new posture was meant to give him a more direct route to the ball.
The results have followed the adjustment, with Bohm now using a faster, shorter swing and showing the benefits in his performance.
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