00:00Aaron Nola, has he turned a corner in your eyes or no?
00:06Okay, I'm still a little bit in wait-and-see mode.
00:09You know, it's not that long ago that Aaron Nola was a guy who might go out
00:14and strike out 10 Mets in a row, right?
00:16So I don't know that he's back to that.
00:19Is he a guy who's back to being a reasonably consistent middle-of-the-rotation starter?
00:24I think we've definitely shown signs of that, right?
00:27Or he's shown signs of that.
00:30But one thing that it's impossible not to notice is he's gone significantly heavier knuckle curve, Ricky,
00:38and he's barely showing that four-seamer now.
00:41When he was at his worst, he was throwing that four-seamer 25, 30 times a game,
00:47and it was getting crushed.
00:49Last night, he threw that pitch only 15 times.
00:53Game before that, only 14 times.
00:56So I think he's figured out, and the pitching group has figured out,
01:00he cannot lean on that pitch with this ABS strike zone.
01:05Jason, I noticed last night, if you notice the first couple of hitters,
01:09he went with the four-seamer and it wasn't going well.
01:12And he immediately changed after that.
01:15Yeah, like, he just can't live with that pitch in the four-seam universe.
01:21And, you know, one thing that bad Aaron is, he's very good at reading what's going right and what's going
01:30wrong.
01:32You know, the one thing that I would be concerned about a little bit over these last two starts is
01:38it's two straight starts against the Padres,
01:40the worst hitting team in this league, and a team really light on left-handed bats.
01:46So it enables him to use that curveball when he's ahead in the count.
01:51He's been doing a much better job of getting ahead in the count.
01:55But let's see what happens going forward.
01:59The only thing I know is 18 strikeouts, no walks in 16 innings over his last three starts.
02:05If you get that guy, he can pitch in a winning rotation.
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