MIAMI _ It started to happen last summer.
Pitch by pitch, start by start, every five days or so, Aaron Nola began to resemble the honest-to-goodness ace the Phillies lacked since they traded Cole Hamels midway through 2015. Nola harnessed his full repertoire, including a bending curveball, and posted the eighth-best ERA (3.16) among National League starters over the final three months of last season. With the Phillies woefully out of contention, he was a reason to keep watching.
But Wednesday night, in the midst of his stellar beginning to this new season, the 24-year-old right-hander displayed another characteristic of all classic No. 1 starters.
Nola was a stopper.
Never mind that the Phillies had lost four consecutive games and were in jeopardy of getting swept by the stripped-down Miami Marlins. Or that up and down the lineup _ from Rhys Hoskins (10 strikeouts in his last five games, including four Wednesday night) to Carlos Santana (one hit in his last 20 at-bats) _ they aren't hitting. Or that rookie infielder Scott Kingery was out with a bruised and swollen right biceps.
The Phillies had Nola on the mound, which meant they had a chance. And sure enough, he showed up. Nola scattered four hits, retired 17 batters in a row at one point and put the Phillies on his back in a cathartic 6-0 victory.
"You expect to win every night, you prepare to win every night, but whenever Nola's on the mound, you have an extra degree of confidence," manager Gabe Kapler said before the game. "Look, baseball's a tricky game. It doesn't always work out that way. But we feel good knowing our stud is on the mound."
And make no mistake, Nola is a stud. He has allowed two runs or fewer in 21 of his last 25 starts and completed at least six innings in 20 of them dating to last June 22. During that span, only Cleveland's Corey Kluber, Houston's Justin Verlander and the Yankees' Luis Severino _ aces, all _ have a better ERA than Nola's 2.77 mark.
Think of Nola as a slightly shorter, right-hander version of Hamels. Through his first 67 career starts, Nola has allowed 167 earned runs in 402 1/3 innings for a 3.74 ERA. At the same stage of his career, Hamels had given up 170 runs in 428 2/3 innings for a 3.57 ERA. The last Phillies pitcher to retire at least 17 consecutive batters in the same game? You guessed it. Hamels, in his no-hitter on July 25, 2015.
It helped that Cesar Hernandez gave Nola a lead before he took the mound by taking Marlins starter Jose Urena deep for his fifth career leadoff homer. The Phillies tacked on a run in the second inning when Pedro Florimon doubled and scored on a throwing error by Urena.
From there, though, it was all about Nola. The Marlins didn't get a runner into scoring position after the first inning and didn't have any baserunners at all from the third inning through the seventh. Nola was on cruise control until his evening ended with Lewis Brinson's single on his 101st pitch of the game with one out in the eighth inning.
It was all very ace-like. And by now, let there be no doubt that Nola has achieved that status.
