Phillies news & links — Aaron Nola, dream pitcher

This morning, we’re going to clear something up right away.

Odubel Herrera speaks English

There was a lot of talk yesterday in our comments and around the internet that Odubel Herrera either doesn’t know English, doesn’t speak it well, and someone even suggested that he doesn’t have the intelligence or drive to learn the language. (They suggested this with zero evidence.) I refuted as many of these as I could since Herrera is a human being who has lived in this country for several years. I tried to point out the difference between wanting an interpreter for interviews and just talking to people in real life, but what I needed was a tweet from a beat writer. Thank you, Todd Zolecki.

That’s not a joke, like some people took a Matt Gelb tweet about Odubel Herrera speaking English to a Japanese news crew during last year’s All-Star Game. (And I’m not even going to get into the patronizing nature of the question Zolecki was answering, because that’s the only thing I’d talk about for the rest of this links post.) Odubel Herrera speaks English. End. Of. Story.

Hey look, another win!

Onto more pleasant news: the Phillies have won four games in a row! That’s pretty great! They haven’t won this many games in a row since April, and they haven’t won back-to-back road games since last September. Please read LTG’s excellent recap of last night’s game.

Aaron Nola was great

I’m not sure if Matt Breen was responsible for this headline, but I applaud whoever was responsible.

Hola, Nola. I mean, that’s pretty great. And so was Aaron Nola last night.

God, that stat line is a dream. Here’s what Pete Mackanin told Jim Salisbury, and it’s great.

"It was great to see somebody go eight innings," Mackanin said. "He begged me to go back out for the ninth — he was begging me — and I decided against it at the last minute. The last two batters in that eighth inning hit the ball hard against him and I didn't want him to face the middle of the lineup for a fourth time. He did a great job."

God I love Aaron Nola. Nola’s performance came from within himself, but he was apparently challenged by Mack to pitch better.

Mack threw down the gauntlet, and Nola picked it up. But Jerad Eickhoff was challenged, too. Let’s see what he can do tonight.