Homers keep coming, but Nola's woes return

MILWAUKEE -- After back-to-back strong seven-inning starts and boasting a dominant career record against the Brewers, expectations were high for Aaron Nola when he took the mound for the Phillies at American Family Field in Milwaukee on Saturday night.

But Nola struggled early and labored through one of his most difficult performances of the season as the Phils fell to the Brewers, 7-5.

Nola, who entered the game 6-1 with a 2.30 ERA in 11 career starts against the Brewers, worked his way into trouble in the second inning when four of the first six batters got hits to push across three runs. Milwaukee then tagged Nola for four more runs in the fifth, including a two-run homer by Carlos Santana. The seven earned runs allowed by Nola marked a season high -- and were just one shy of his career high.

• Games remaining: at MIL (1), at SD (3), vs. MIA (3), vs. ATL (4), at STL (3), at ATL (3), vs. NYM (4), vs. PIT (3), at NYM (3)

• Standings update: Phillies remained 2 1/2 games ahead of the Cubs for the top NL Wild Card spot. They are 4 1/2 games clear of the D-backs, Giants and Reds.

The Phillies had won each of Nola’s past four starts, but the Brewers handed the right-hander his ninth loss of the season.

“I was pretty bad tonight,” Nola said. “A couple of big innings blew up on me. I was missing a little bit around the strike zone, and they were battling me when I was in the strike zone, too, especially with two strikes.”

Manager Rob Thomson thought Nola’s troubles began in the first inning, even though he struck out three batters and allowed only one baserunner (a walk to Santana).

“You take the first inning -- he gets two outs and has two strikes on Carlos Santana on nine pitches,” Thomson said. “He ends up with 23 [pitches]. I don’t know if that took something out of him. But then, the second inning, they got runners on and he couldn’t stop the momentum. Then, he had a couple of good innings and then another one where he couldn’t stop the momentum.”

Nola gave up eight hits and seven runs in 4 2/3 innings while walking three and striking out five. Nola threw 97 pitches, 62 for strikes. Santana's home run was the 30th surrendered by Nola this season, already well clear of his previous career high of 27 set in 2019.

Thomson wasn’t completely discouraged with Nola’s performance, despite the stat line.

“All in all, I thought his stuff was pretty good,” Thomson said. “I think that first inning just wore him down.”

Nola had a different assessment.

“Overall, I just stunk, really,” he said.

As for the knuckle curve that Santana hit for a home run in the fifth inning, Nola said: “It was a terrible pitch.”

Nola stressed the importance of putting this outing behind him with the hope of helping the team down the stretch.

“I’ll flush this one and forget about it, and move on to the next one,” he said.

Nola reached a milestone with a first-inning strikeout of Christian Yelich. That gave him 1,555 career strikeouts, moving him into sole possession of fifth place on the team’s all-time list, passing Curt Schilling. Nola, who recorded four more strikeouts to reach 1,559, trails only Steve Carlton (3,031), Robin Roberts (1,871), Cole Hamels (1,844) and Chris Short (1,585).

But Nola’s struggles overshadowed impressive accomplishments by Kyle Schwarber and Trea Turner.

Schwarber hit his ninth leadoff home run this season, including his second in as many nights. He’s tied for the most in franchise history for a single season with Jimmy Rollins, who set the mark during his 2007 NL MVP-winning season.

Schwarber has the second-most leadoff home runs in the Majors this season, trailing only the Dodgers' Mookie Betts, who has 11.

As for Turner, he hit a solo homer in the sixth -- his fifth consecutive game with a home run, tying a franchise record.

That wasn’t it for Turner, who singled in the first, then stole both second and third, making him 25-for-25 on stolen-base attempts this season. The last player to be successful on each of his first 25 attempts in a season was Carl Crawford, who started 30-for-30 as a member of the Rays in 2009. Rollins had 25 consecutive successful steals to start the 2008 season.

After finishing with an MLB-best 59 homers in August, the Phillies continued their power surge with three more homers on Saturday, with Schwarber, Turner and J.T. Realmuto all going deep.

Philadelphia trailed by five after five innings, but chipped away with one run each in the sixth, eighth and ninth innings. The Phils had the potential go-ahead run at the plate in the ninth, but Brewers closer Devin Williams struck out Turner to end it.

“That’s the thing that this club does: keep chipping away and keep fighting,” Thomson said. “I’m happy about that. We just ran out of innings.”