The season is over for young Phillies starting pitcher Aaron Nola. Nola was moved to the 60-day disabled list on Wednesday, making an assumed season shutdown official.
Nola has met with Dr. James Andrews to evaluate some shoulder concerns. Dr. Andrews diagnosed Nola with a low-grade sprain of his UCL and a low-grade strain of his flexor tendon. For now, surgery is not in the offseason plan, which is good news for Nola and the Phillies. Nola is expected to rejoin the Phillies in spring training.
“Right now all the doctors, Dr. [Michael] Ciccotti, Dr. [Steven] Cohen and Dr. Andrews have all suggested that they think rest and ramping him back up after that to confirm that he’s still feeling good is the right plan of care,” Phillies general manager Matt Klentak said, according to CSN Philly.
Nola is clearly focused on being ready for the spring as well. As quoted by Meghan Montemurro of The News Journal;
“I’m pretty confident right now that it’ll heal correctly,” Nola said. “By spring training I should be good to go.
“I can’t know what exactly it’s going to be like in a few weeks or a few months or in spring training,” he added. “But I expect it to be good to go and all healthy. My arm should be healthy by [spring training].”
Nola was 6-9 this season with a 4.78 ERA and 1.306 WHIP with 121 strikeouts in 111.0 innings. At times, Nola was brilliant and provided a glimmer of hope for the future of the Phillies’ starting rotation, and a lack of run support from the anemic Phillies offense hurt him at times. An inability to go deep in games since the start of June led to some questions about Nola’s arm. Since going seven full innings against Atlanta on May 20, Nola never went more than six full innings and has gone since June 5 with just two outings reaching six full innings.
The Phillies called up relief pitcher Frank Herrmann, who last pitched in the majors in 2012 with the Cleveland Indians, from triple-A to fill the vacant spot on the 40-man roster. Elvis Araujo was sent down to Triple-A as well.
