Behind the scorching-hot Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, the Philadelphia Phillies entered play on Wednesday as one of the hottest teams in baseball, winners of eight of their last 10 to climb back above .500 after an existentially disappointing start to the season. But unfortunately, no hot streak is safe from the way Aaron Nola is pitching right now: Philly’s veteran righty brought the good vibes to a screeching halt in his start against the Cincinnati Reds, getting lit up for four runs on eight hits in five innings of work.

And that sort of stat line is no outlier. In fact, it’s been the norm for Nola this season, as his ugly 5.91 ERA would attest. He’s completed six innings just three times in 10 starts, and he’s allowed fewer than three runs just twice. For a Phillies team with very few other rotation options right now, Nola’s steep and sudden decline has been a back-breaker — and the picture only gets worse when you zoom out a bit.

Phillies are staring down a potential disaster with Aaron Nola

When Dave Dombrowski signed Nola to a seven-year, $172 million deal after the 2023 season, it felt straight-forward enough. The righty was coming off a relatively down year, but his track record spoke for itself, and Philly needed stability in its starting rotation. And Nola paid that faith off right away, reverting to form with a 3.57 ERA in 2024. Sure, they’d be paying him into his late 30s, but that was just the cost of doing business — and hey, at least he’d give them a few more solid seasons before the decline set in.

Except, well, it sure seems like the decline is already here. Nola has followed up an awful 2025 season (6.01 ERA, 1.346 WHIP) with something arguably even worse so far in 2026: His Ks are way down, his walks are up and the contact he gives up is awfully loud. Yes, it’s still just the middle of May, and 10 starts is by no means a definitive sample — especially for someone of Nola’s stature. Still, it’s hard to ignore the trendlines here, and with every clunker he throws up, it looks more and more like the Phillies are going to be stuck with both a short-term and long-term problem.

In the short term … I mean, where else are the Phillies supposed to turn? There’s essentially no depth behind the team’s current starting five, unless top prospect Gage Wood can somehow sprint through Double-A all the way to the Majors. Anyone the team might turn to from Triple-A wouldn’t offer much more than Nola does, with a considerably lower ceiling. For a team that’s about as all-in as all-in can be, it’s a sobering thought that the guy who was supposed to be your No. 4 behind Zack Wheeler, Cristopher Sanchez and Jesus Luzardo looks borderline unplayable right now. And it’s not like this farm system has the goods to go out and get a difference-maker at the trade deadline.

Which brings us to the long-term problem. Unless Nola can turn things around, this contract has the potential to become spectacularly bad. The Phillies are on the hook here through the 2030 season, at which point Nola will be 37 years old. If he’s already showing signs of decline before his 33rd birthday, do we really want to see how things look two, three or four years down the road? Philly has some money coming off the books this winter, sure, but they also have holes to fill, and sinking some $25 million a year into Nola could hamstring Dombrowski or whoever succeeds him as lead executive.

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