As beautiful as that final score was, things didn’t start out quite as smoothly as we might have hoped. Today was Nola day, typically a day when Phillies fans can look to bounce back from any unfortunate loss(es) that may have preceded Nola day, though that has been somewhat less true this season. While, yes, this was a solid bounce back day, it wasn’t because of Aaron Nola.
Today was a day to celebrate the bats, which came alive in a big way to bail out Nola’s quite frankly terrible performance. The first three innings were a back and forth battle, with the Phillies taking the lead in the first on a Alec Bohm hit-by-pitch which scored the starting center fielder after he had singled and Bryce Harper and Andrew McCutchen had walked to load the bases.