A Philadelphia-based brother and a California-based brother going head-to-head and letting that brotherly rivalry boost their respective performances? Now, why does that sound familiar?
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This time, however, the brothers facing off were not doing so on the NBA hardwood but on the baseball diamond. Philadelphia Phillies starter Aaron Nola took the mound against the San Diego Padres, who were batting catcher Austin Nola fifth in the lineup. It was the first time that the pair of brothers had ever played against each other at the highest level. The two were teammates on LSU's 2012 baseball team, when Austin was a senior and Aaron was a freshman, and it had been quite some time since then that the pair had shared the same field.
This time, however, they weren't on the same team. As it turned out, Aaron had the advantage.
Yeah... you see that 96.2-MPH heat? That's the third-fastest pitch that Nola has ever thrown in his career, as Sarah Langs noted, which he attributed to "a little extra" energy that he might have gotten considering it was his brother. Another pitch in the at-bat, a 95.9-MPH fastball, clocked in as the fastest pitch of the season prior to when he dialed it up even more for the K.
Austin popped out and walked in his other two at-bats against Aaron, who threw a whopping 117 pitches in the matchup and was nearly flawless until that 117th pitch found the seats for a Jake Cronenworth game-tying home run in the ninth.
The Nola parents were in attendance, as well, making the occasion all the more memorable.
“We're living a dream right now,” father A.J. Nola told Bally Sports San Diego (via AJ Cassavell and Daniel Guerrero of MLB.com). “Words can't describe it right now. I'm just trying to soak it all in and enjoy the moment, because we've been waiting for this since they were little kids.”
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