Wednesday was a historic one at Citizens Bank Park as Michael Lorenzen threw a no-hitter against the Washington Nationals in a 7-0 Philadelphia Phillies victory. Lorenzen is already proving to be a valuable trade deadline addition for the Phillies , who are comfortably in the Wild Card race at 63-52. The Phillies are second in the NL East and the Nationals are last at 50-65.
Now the pressure is on Aaron Nola to follow up that performance. Nola will take the mound for the 24th time this year and he is 9-8 with a 4.58 ERA in his 23 previous starts. The Nationals will hand the ball to Patrick Corbin who is 7-11 with a 5.03 ERA in his 23 starts this season.
The Phillies are big favorites at home tonight as they go for the series win in Game 4.
Nationals vs. Phillies odds, run line and total
Nationals vs. Phillies prediction and pick
Aaron Nola has faced some really poor offensive teams lately and he’s had really poor performances. Last time out he only went 5.1 innings against the Royals and allowed five runs on eight hits with eight strikeouts. Before that it was seven runs in 4.2 innings against the Pirates, but only five of the seven were earned. It’s been a very tough stretch and near the end of his start in Pittsburgh he really looked fatigued, so that could be playing a role.
Nola has also given up 23 home runs this year and five in his last three starts. Patrick Corbin has even given up one more home run, 24 this year and he gave up three long balls last time out. That makes six in his last three starts, so for all of Nola’s struggles, Corbin has been even worse.
The Phillies are good against lefties, just not great. They’re actually 15th in the league in OPS, but fourth in home runs. So they’re more likely to take Corbin deep than the Nats are to leave the yard against Nola. Alec Bohm has seven homers against lefties and a team best .951 OPS, so I’d look for him to have a big day.
It’ll be tough to follow up a no-hitter and I wouldn’t expect anything like that from Nola, but I do think he’ll have a bounce-back start after two rough ones.
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