PHILADELPHIA — Phillies right-handed pitcher Aaron Nola, making his fifth consecutive opening-day start, looked incredibly efficient with a 6-1 lead over the Oakland Athletics through six innings on Friday. It was the seventh inning that got him, and it got him bad when Seth Brown hit a three-run home run to end Nola’s day.
Things only got worse from there. Phillies third baseman Bryson Stott missed a catch for an error, then made another error, overthrowing a ball to first base that scored a run and got Oakland within 6-5. But much like they likely will do often this season, the Phillies’ bats bailed them out, adding a run in the seventh inning and two in the eighth for a 9-5 victory.
Nola allowed four hits, four earned runs, no walks and struck out seven. His line was a bit deceiving, as two of his four hits were home runs, and those accounted for the four earned runs. But what might be more important to Nola’s 2022 season, long-term, was that he induced eight groundouts. Nola’s fly ball rate spiked from 27.5% in 2020 to 40.5% in 2021. Keeping the ball on the ground was important for him coming into this season, so the fact that he was able to do that early in the game was a positive sign.
And of course, we saw what happens when the ball doesn’t stay on the ground — two home runs, four earned runs, and a lead that starts to slip away.
The bomb squad arrives
In his first at-bat as a Phillie in the first inning, Kyle Schwarber waited patiently at the plate, as six of A’s starter Frankie Montas’ pitches passed him by. On the seventh — a sinker, down in the zone — he struck, launching a ball deep into right-center field, as Citizens Bank Park erupted into raucous applause and the Phillies took a 1-0 lead.
Schwarber flipped his bat, pointed to the dugout, and began his jog around the bases. Matt Vierling slapped Stott with excitement. Rhys Hoskins bounced up and down, letting out a yell. Bryce Harper laughed as he walked up to the on-deck circle.
Schwarber was laughing too, as was Hoskins, Stott and Vierling, and probably every other player and coach and trainer in the Phillies dugout. Schwarber’s 426-foot shot felt almost too perfect to script, coming from a team that now has three of the top 10 players in MLB last season in OPS. A team whose hitting coach, Kevin Long, made T-shirts for them that read “I don’t have a college degree. I just hit baseballs.”
As Schwarber made his way through the dugout, high-fiving his enthusiastic teammates, he sensed that the crowd wasn’t going to die down any time soon. So he ran up the dugout steps, threw a fist pump in the air, and let out a passionate yell. With only one at-bat into the 2022 regular season, it felt like this was the beginning of something new.
Working the at-bats
The Phillies put together 15 at-bats that were five pitches or more on Friday. All of that patience paid off early. In the third inning, Schwarber got on base with a walk, J.T. Realmuto singled, Harper doubled to score Schwarber, and Hoskins singled to score Realmuto and Harper. Those four earned runs provided a nice cushion later for them later in the game.
It was a stark departure from Nola’s efficiency. Montas was at 67 pitches after three innings of work, and the A’s had their bullpen warming up. Nola, conversely, was at only 35 pitches, and tossed 76.
