Road warrior? Nola primed for postseason stage

ST. LOUIS -- The champagne bottles are popping, the music is blasting and the Phillies are partying.

Aaron Nola is asked Monday night inside a pulsating visitors’ clubhouse at Minute Maid Park about what it’s like to finally make the postseason. Several people lean in to listen, but Nola’s words are barely audible. Even in the hubbub of the Phillies’ first postseason appearance since 2011, he is as relaxed as ever, which means he is talking as softly as ever.

He is smiling. It is the only way to know he is having fun.

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Nola, who pitched 6 2/3 perfect innings before giving up a couple of hits in Monday’s postseason clincher against the Astros, will start Game 2 of the NL Wild Card Series against the Cardinals on Saturday night at Busch Stadium. After a ninth-inning comeback in Game 1, the Phillies can clinch a trip to the NL Division Series against the Braves with a victory.

Nola is looking forward to his shot. He is as competitive as anybody in the Phillies’ clubhouse, although if you watch him pitch, it is impossible to know how he feels about anything. His ability to mask his emotions is so well-regarded that when he slammed his glove into the back of the dugout last week after serving up a home run at Wrigley Field, it almost startled Phillies interim manager Rob Thomson.

It was the first time in years (ever?) that Nola showed any frustration on camera.

“He flatlines, no expressions,” Thomson said.

It is by design.

“I’ve always thought that if you don’t show any emotion, nobody can really pick up on it,” Nola said. “As pitchers, if somebody shows a lot of emotion, or they’re getting down on themselves, a hitter can sense that, right? Or vice versa. I feel like that can be an advantage to the opposing guy. If you give up a bad hit, what are you going to do about it? Mope? That makes it worse because then you make another bad pitch and it spirals. The only thing you can do is focus on the next pitch.”

Nola has worked on this thought process over the years, but it also seems to be part of his DNA. Nola doesn’t just go with the flow on the mound. He goes with the flow everywhere. How else can you explain why a 29-year-old big leaguer spends the offseason traveling the country in a van, sleeping in Cracker Barrel parking lots along the way?

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Nola spent the past offseason driving and living in a souped-up Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van with his fiancée, Hunter, and their dog, Boone. They traveled to Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky and through the Great West, including Utah, Arizona and California.

Nola, who loved traveling and had always wanted a van, started watching van videos a few years ago on YouTube.

“I’m like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to do it. I’m going to get one,’” Nola said. “I called companies to see what the wait time was. It was like, a year-and-a-half to two years. I was like, ‘It’s going to take too long. I want to travel now.'”

So he bought a barebones van and started working on it with the help of a friend.

“Insulated it, put wood on the ceiling and walls,” he said. “Vinyl floor down, some rubber floor. Put a bed in there, a little sofa sleeper. I can stand up in it. I probably have about an inch, inch-and-a-half of space. We’ve just got plumbing and cabinets to do. We got a fridge. We got some hangers for clothes.”

They have a popup stove to cook. They have a compost toilet. There are two big batteries in the back and a solar panel on the roof for power. Everything runs off 12 volts. At the moment, cabinets are being installed.

There is no TV. If they want to watch a show, they download something to the iPad.

“We fly so much during the year,” he said. “When I get a chance to get on the road, I love it. It’s peaceful.”

Nola, his fiancée and their dogs (they have two now) hope to travel out West again this offseason, hopefully after the World Series.

“I love hitting the road,” he said. “We just stay at Cracker Barrels because you can stay at any Cracker Barrel in the back [parking lot]. Usually wherever we’re going, if we have a few hours left, I’ll look up a Cracker Barrel closest to the interstate. We try to grab something to eat there that night, head to the back, watch a movie, go to sleep and get up the next morning.”

Nola gets the same thing to eat there every time, morning, noon or night.

“Chicken fried steak and eggs,” he said.

Even if he’s rolling in at 8 p.m.?

“Chicken fried steak and eggs,” he said, laughing.

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Phillies ace Zack Wheeler chuckled Thursday when asked if he had ever seen Nola raise his voice. Years ago, when Nola signed a contract extension with the Phillies, even his parents said they never see him get upset.

“Yeah, me and [Zach] Eflin can ruffle his feathers a little bit,” Wheeler said, smiling. “Never during the game, just clubhouse-type stuff. But him going in Game 2, you can’t ask for anything more. He’s a special talent. We saw what he did the other day in a game that we needed, and he stepped up big for us right there.”

Nola is ready for the Game 2 challenge, too.

“I’ve always been competitive, from a young age,” he said. “My brother [Padres catcher Austin Nola] and I, we were always competitive with each other, no matter what. And now we’re up here at the highest level of baseball. You’ve got to be competitive.”

You just won’t know how competitive he is by looking at him.

“I always like to watch guys and how they handle things,” Nola said. “If they get out, line out, strike out, miss-hit a ball and get a base hit, or give up a couple home runs in a row, I always like to watch that.”

Nola believes an opponent can learn something from those moments, which is why no matter what happens in Game 2, you will have no clue how he is doing by looking at him.