Philadelphia Phillies: A deep dive into Aaron Nola’s September struggles

Does Nola just not perform well in the clutch?

Is it just an overall lack of a “clutch gene”? Again, probably not.

When looking at some of Nola’s “clutch stats” (2 outs RISP, late & close, tie game, etc) pretty much none of them stray away from the norm. In fact a majority of his clutch stats are actually better than his usual career averages, leading one to believe that he actually thrives in such moments.

Nola’s “high leverage” opponent OPS is actually a full eight points lower than his “low leverage” opponent OPS. Quite an eye-popping stat considering it’s almost always the opposite with pitchers.

In 2018 and 2019, two seasons where Nola really struggled down the stretch, his opponent batting average with RISP were .169 and .117. Ridiculously low numbers.

Nola’s numbers against rival NL East teams are also consistently solid across the board, with his worst average ERA coming against the Nationals at 3.89 (still pretty good). Nola appears to actually play up to high pressure situations, especially against division rivals, making him surprisingly appear more “clutch” than not.

So if it’s not weather related or clutch related, what could possibly be the reason for Nola’s routine late season struggles? One career split that I did end up stumbling upon was his performance when operating on short rest. When Nola only gets four days of rest, his ERA jumps up to 4.34, compared to it being 2.71 when on five days of rest.

Considering the fact that the Philadelphia Phillies have run him on short rest in the past in an attempt to sneak into the postseason, this could at least be a piece to the puzzle.

Outside of the short rest factor, I really couldn’t find anything else to explain these end of the year “collapses”. The fact that June is statistically a worse month for Nola than September was fairly eye opening, as it could be sign that the Philadelphia Phillies fanbase has simply created a false narrative. Nola doesn’t exclusively struggle in September, signaling that he could just be a streaky pitcher.

There could be a small mental block happening with Nola when it comes to these end of the year starts, as he knows he pretty much has to be perfect for his team to have a shot. In the past he was the only serviceable starter the club had, and he knew that his starts were the only way his team could secure wins. Having Zack Wheeler around this year helped, but the team’s historically bad bullpen honestly probably made the pressure worse than before.

If we’re talking analytics and numbers, Nola should in theory actually thrive in these high-leverage situations. I hate to end this article without a definitive answer, but I’m really not sure what the conclusion to be had is here. Avoiding games on short rest in the future would be a good starting point, but in all reality this team just needs to find a way into the postseason to see what their ace looks like in a real high stakes environment.

If Nola gets rocked in his first career playoff start, then we can have conversations about him being an “un-clutch” pitcher. If he throws 7.0 innings of one-run ball, then we can probably put all this noise to rest.