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We haven’t seen Aaron Nola for a while, and it turns out the Phillies smuggled him off to see Dr. James Andrews, fully away of the dread that can accompany that name. And it turns out that things are not okay.
Aaron Nola’s season is over. Saw James Andrews, who diagnosed mild UCL sprain and mild flexor strain. Received PRP injection.
— Matt Gelb (@MattGelb) August 17, 2016
The UCL is the ligament that keeps the arm bones together, and the Platelet-Rich Plasma injection Nola received is used to speed up the healing process. There’s not much that can happen to that part of a pitcher’s body that is good news.
Nola will sit motionless for about a month, and then begin a recovery that the team is hoping will be over by the time spring training rolls around, and are furiously sacrificing tithes to the baseball gods as we speak.
The 23-year-old Nola finishes with 111 IP for the 2016 season, through which he threw 4.17 SO/W, 9.8 SO/9. He went 1-for-30 at the plate with a double.
His 4.78 ERA is weighted down on the back end by a loss of command and what appears to be a season-shortening medical issue. He gave the Phillies seven innings of work in seven of his first nine starts, usually good for that 100-pitch threshold until mid-June, when everything fell apart. On June 5, he had a 2.65 ERA through twelve starts and was considered to be the Phillies’ best ambassador for the NL All-Star team.
**sigh**