Aaron Nola has big role to fill as Phillies ace

In the locker to the right of where the new ace of the Phillies pitching staff was sitting, everything was still in its place: Cole Hamels' nameplate, Cole Hamels' clothes, Cole Hamels' shoes. The eight-player trade consummated late Wednesday night, sending Hamels to the Texas Rangers, was not yet official when the Phillies clubhouse opened at 3:30 p.m. Thursday, so Hamels' presence remained tangible there, even if he himself was not. He was technically still the Phillies' best pitcher, even if he would not pitch for them again.

And Aaron Nola sat in his chair and leaned over a shelf in his locker, autographing baseball cards.

"He was really welcoming, like all the other guys on the team," Nola said. "Really welcoming and really nice."

There was nothing surprising about Hamels' open-armed acceptance of Nola. Over the 10 days since Nola arrived from triple-A Lehigh Valley, Hamels had made it clear that he regarded Nola not as a neophyte who needed to earn the respect of his teammates, but as an equal who already had it. And in the wake of the Phillies' long-anticipated decision to use Hamels as an accelerant for their rebuilding process, it is reasonable to think that Hamels could see then what was ahead: that Nola was coming just as he was going, that it was time for a torch-passing.

Here it is, then. After two starts and 132/3 innings, with his earned-run average a respectable 3.29 and opposing batters hitting just .208 against him, Nola will move to the top of the Phillies rotation. They cannot admit this truth, of course, because it is as much an indictment of their other starters - Aaron Harang, Jerome Williams, maybe David Buchanan, eventually Matt Harrison and his fused spine - as it is an indication of Nola's talent and potential.

"I'd rather not say who I'd consider my number-one guy," interim manager Pete Mackanin said. "It's not important to me at this point." But then, he doesn't have to say it. Everyone already knows it.

"I try not to let that get in my head," Nola said before the Phillies' 4-1 victory Thursday over the Atlanta Braves. "I try to block that stuff out, and I think I'm pretty good at blocking that stuff out. Every time I step in between the lines, all I can do is the best I can do."

During their short stint as teammates, Nola learned as much as he could from Hamels, probing his mind for insight into how to prepare for each start, how to get through an outing when you know you don't have your best stuff. As it turned out, Hamels delivered his greatest lesson Saturday, without having to say a word. Nola had never been to Wrigley Field before last weekend, and he'd never seen a major-league no-hitter in person, and there he was in the dugout, watching Hamels cut down one Chicago Cubs hitter after another as if he was a machine.

"Just his confidence on the mound, you could see it," he said. "And the pace he was going at, he was awesome."

Understand: There's no way to evaluate this trade fairly, to judge whether the Phillies got enough in return for their best home-grown pitcher of the last half-century and a lefthanded reliever who can reach 100 m.p.h. in Jake Diekman, for at least another two or three years. Given the uncertainty that any prospect, no matter how ballyhooed, will develop into an excellent major-league player, they did the right thing in acquiring as many as possible - five in all, including three whom Baseball America ranked among the five best in the Rangers system.

But those five prospects need time to mature, if they mature at all. In the meantime, Nola is here already, and he has been impressive: six innings of one-run ball against the Tampa Bay Rays in a game he should have won, 72/3 innings against the Cubs in a game he did win. He is also just 22, and at the moment, he is the leading candidate to be the Phillies' 2016 opening-day starter. Less than an hour before Thursday's first pitch, in fact, as fans filed into Citizens Bank Park, an advertisement on PhanaVision reminded them that Nola jerseys and T-shirts were on sale in the park's apparel store.

No pressure, kid.

"I don't even think that's an issue," Mackanin said. "He's handling the newness of this whole thing and the pressure - if he even considers there being any pressure.

"I asked him the other day, 'How do you like being in the big leagues? How do you feel about being here?' He said, 'Watching it on TV, so much is different. I felt like I couldn't possibly make a mistake out over the plate or it would get hit, and I found that not to be the case.' You always look at it, when you're not there, like, 'How good are these guys? Can I pitch here?' And I think he found out real quick he can pitch here."

Ten days, two starts. So much, so fast. Aaron Nola sat there and signed card after card, and that locker to his right looked like it always did, with all those items and memories that belonged to Cole Hamels, with all that space to fill.

@MikeSielski