Phillies' Aaron Nola goes on IL with ankle sprain; Mick Abel to make MLB debut Sunday

New York Times

16-05-2025

PHILADELPHIA — It's been almost eight years since Aaron Nola last went on the injured list — so long ago that, in 2017, Major League Baseball still called it the disabled list. For a week, the Phillies have known Nola's right ankle hurt. He injured it May 8 during pregame agility drills at George M. Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, Fla. Nola still pitched the next day in Cleveland and allowed four runs in five innings. He stayed in the rotation only to endure the worst start of his career — allowing nine runs in 3 2/3 innings Wednesday against the St. Louis Cardinals.
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So, when Nola arrived Friday at Citizens Bank Park, they called him into the manager's office. The Phillies told him it was time to press pause. Nola is on the IL with the sprained right ankle; he'll miss at least two weeks and perhaps more. The club does not consider the injury serious, but Nola acknowledged he felt more stress in his back as a result of altering his mechanics to compensate for the bad ankle.
For now, the Phillies will replace Nola with Mick Abel. The 2020 first-round pick will make his big-league debut Sunday as a spot starter. The Phillies have told Abel, 23, that his first time in the majors will last only one start. He'll return to Triple-A Lehigh Valley after Sunday's game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Then, Taijuan Walker will rejoin the rotation next week in Colorado. Inserting Abel allows the Phillies to bump everyone else in the rotation back a day, too.
For Abel, it's a reward after eight strong starts to begin 2025. He slogged through 108 2/3 innings of a 6.46 ERA last season at Triple A. It was a mental grind. But Abel has thrown more strikes in 2025. His stuff is better. Rival evaluators have seen a pitcher with better mound presence; before, Abel would dwell on mistakes. By promoting him to the majors with clear parameters — the club told Abel this would be one start and one start only — it allows the right-handed prospect a chance to get his feet wet.
As for Nola, the Phillies claim they knew about the pitcher's injury for the last week but declined to reveal it for competitive reasons. They did not want other clubs testing Nola's ankle by bunting. Nola wanted to pitch through it; the Phillies were willing to oblige until the performance suffered too much. He has a 6.16 ERA in nine starts this season. To this point, he is the weak link in an otherwise strong rotation.
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Nola is one of the most durable pitchers in the sport. His last injury that required downtime was a strained lower back that sidelined him from April 21-May 20, 2017. No one has made more starts or logged more innings since the beginning of the 2018 season than Nola.
'That's how I go about everything,' he said. 'I try to be as healthy as possible so I can be prepared and make my starts every single time I'm given the baseball. It's just something that just happened … non-baseball related. Just trying to do a lot of similar stuff that I usually do the day before starts. It's kind of a freak thing. It sucks, but that's part of it. Hopefully, it can get better pretty quickly.'