PHOENIX — In the third inning of Thursday’s 5-4 Phillies win, Ketel Marte stepped up to the plate with runners on second and third. Nola fed him four pitches, one in the dirt, and three out of the zone. On the fifth pitch, a knuckle curve spun right down the middle of the plate, Marte pounced, launching a three run home run into the center field seats to give the Diamondbacks at 4-3 lead.
In the next at-bat, with no runners on base, Nola struck out Corbin Carroll, who hits for far more power than Marte does. In the at-bat after that, he induced a groundout from Christian Walker, who is batting .308/.367/.615 over his last seven games.
It was the perfect encapsulation of a growing trend that we’ve seen from Nola this season. There aren’t numbers — at least not public ones — on how pitchers pitch out of the windup and out of the stretch. But looking at how they pitch with runners on and with the bases empty can be a good estimate. And Nola’s numbers have gotten more pronounced of late.
