PHILADELPHIA — The 2,000th strikeout came on a sinker clipping the zone, flitting from Aaron Nola’s hand toward Brandon Valenzuela at 93.4 mph on Saturday.The Citizens Bank Park scoreboard quickly flipped to a graphic that featured Nola, which read “2,000 strikeouts.” The music blaring through the ballpark changed to “I Am Second,” Nola’s warm-up song. Home-plate umpire Brennan Miller brushed dirt off the plate and looked to the ground as catcher Garrett Stubbs walked toward Nola, who seemed content to throw another pitch rather than take it all in.But, in that moment, Nola joined a rather exclusive club. He became just the seventh active pitcher with 2,000 strikeouts — accomplishing the milestone as his Phillies faced the Toronto Blue Jays, while pitching against another member of that group in Max Scherzer. Nola entered Saturday three shy of 2,000, and struck out three Blue Jays batters — Jesús Sánchez, Andrés Giménez and Valenzuela — to reach the achievement in just 1 2/3 innings. He went on to give up two runs, strike out eight and walk two across five innings.
The ending of Nola’s outing, however, was much less promising than the beginning. He exited after taking a comebacker to the outside of his lower right leg that left Sánchez’s bat at 104.8 mph in the sixth inning. The Phillies said the injury is a right knee contusion and that Nola will receive further evaluation. He threw two warm-up pitches before shaking his head. He appeared to say “I can’t” to the Phillies training staff and interim manager Don Mattingly. Nola was at 95 pitches entering the sixth and 97 after Sánchez’s at-bat, so the Phillies had reliever Brooks Raley ready to enter.The Phillies did not acquire another starter at the deadline, placing faith in Nola and rookie Andrew Painter to compete as the club’s fourth and fifth starters during the stretch run. Any injury would obviously disrupt those plans and potentially put the club’s postseason chances in jeopardy.It has been a difficult season for Nola, who entered Saturday with a 5.55 ERA in 120 innings — though he has been a strong back-end starter at times. His four-seam fastball has been one of the hardest-hit in the majors this season, with a .347 batting average against (fourth-worst) and .713 slugging rate against (third-worst). Left-handed hitters have a .281 batting average against him this year. Still, he has gone out every fifth day, serving as a strong back-end starter at times. His curveball remains one of the best in baseball, with the ninth-highest whiff rate (41.1 percent) of any pitch in MLB this season.Regardless, reaching 2,000 strikeouts only further solidifies Nola’s standing as part of Phillies pitching royalty. He is just the fifth Phillies pitcher to achieve the milestone in the club’s uniform, and in June became one of four to start more than 300 games for the club.This story will be updated.
