Aaron Nola Has Glaring Weakness To Fix To Help Phillies Win

There is a clear weakness Philadelphia Phillies' starting pitcher Aaron Nola has to address.

Jun 7, 2026; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola (27) throws a pitch against the Chicago White Sox during the first inning at Citizens Bank Park. | Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

The 2026 MLB regular season has been full of peaks and valleys for Philadelphia Phillies starting pitcher Aaron Nola; unfortunately, the bad has been outweighed by the good.

There have been flashes of excellence. Six shutout innings against the Miami Marlins was great to see, and he looked to have figured things out in back-to-back starts against the San Diego Padres.

Unfortunately, the encouraging starts have been few and far between. Only four out of Nola’s 13 starts thus far in 2026 have he allowed two or fewer runs. Five times, he has given up at least four, not providing the Phillies much of a chance to win most of the time he has taken the mound this year.

What has been the root cause of his struggles? The veteran righty is getting hit hard by left-handed hitters, who are taking full advantage of his arsenal, currently lacking any offerings to consistently attack them.

Aaron Nola struggling mightily against left-handed hitters

Jun 2, 2026; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA; Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola (27) throws a pitch during the second inning against the San Diego Padres at Citizens Bank Park. | Eric Hartline-Imagn Images

In 154 plate appearances, left-handed hitters have produced a .311/.396/.515 with six home runs, seven doubles and one triple. The main culprit is his four-seam fastball being treated like batting practice.

As shared by Eno Sarris of The Athletic (subscription required), Nola has thrown his four-seam fastball 29% of the time against left-handed hitters. He has a 100 Stuff+, which is league average, but they have produced a .974 slugging percentage with an XSLG of .762.

Even if the numbers start to come down and regress to the mean, that .762 is still damaging. An adjustment that can be made is using his cutter more, which has a Stuff+ of only 92, but left-handed opponents are slugging only .455 against it with an XSLG of .277.

Nola has begun scaling back his four-seam usage against lefties, relying on the cutter a little more, but the results have still been sporadic. After giving up only four runs in 11 innings against the Padres, he gave up five in 4.1 innings against the Chicago White Sox.

Biggest SP Stuff+ improvers, Last 30 vs April: pic.twitter.com/hSYOkDewnW

— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) June 9, 2026

Against the White Sox, Nola threw his four-seamer, cutter and sinker a nearly identical amount. It certainly isn’t encouraging that he was still hit so hard despite the adjustment in his pitch mix.

His offspeed offerings, a curveball and changeup, have generated outstanding results. Unfortunately, he hasn’t been able to get to counts where he can throw them more often.

Alas, it is something to keep an eye on moving forward. The Philadelphia coaching staff will assuredly continue working with Nola to try and figure things out, and his pitches did have a little more life in May than they did in April.

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