Nola gives fans, and Phils, a reason to care

In Baton Rouge, the place to go when the big game is on is Walk-On's Bistreaux and Bar on Burbank Drive, within staggering-home distance of the campus at Louisiana State University, and J.P. Kelly was there Tuesday night.

Kelly is the athletic director at Catholic High School, Aaron Nola's alma mater. He knows Nola well, and he was not going to miss the chance to see the kid's first major-league start. Few in Baton Rouge were. A local sports-talk station had set up a 24-hour countdown clock that expired when Nola threw his first pitch Tuesday. College football season doesn't officially begin for another six weeks, after all.

Walk-On's has Abita on tap and promised to have the Phillies-Tampa Bay Rays game on all its televisions, with the volume turned up. So Kelly invited the entire Catholic coaching staff, from all the school's sports, to the bar to watch. He guessed a dozen would show. It wasn't the crowd that the Phillies have been drawing to Citizens Bank Park lately, but it was close.

"I can tell you this: It's a huge deal," Kelly said in a phone interview. "He was high-character, great leader, strong in the classroom. His impact on our school was great. He is very well known in the Baton Rouge area, so people are excited around here."

For once, they were here, too. The announced attendance for Nola's debut, a 1-0 loss, was 28,703, an uptick both in bodies and in engagement, a tangible difference from the customary somnambulism around the Phillies this season. Those who came to Citizens Bank Park on Tuesday cared about watching Nola pitch. It has been a while since they had a reason to care that much about a team that is 30 games under .500 and going nowhere anytime soon. That's the power of a prospective ace, and people here are hungry for it, including his new teammates.

"Guys are excited to get another guy they know is their equal," Cole Hamels said Tuesday afternoon, as Nola sat at the locker next to him, lost in thought before the game. "I think that's what happens. A lot's put on a first-rounder in what they're supposed to do and who they were. It's, 'Hey, we've got another equal here. This is good.' "

It was an intriguing way for Hamels to frame Nola's arrival - that of an equal, as if Nola, at 22, were already an established major-leaguer whom the Phillies had acquired in a trade. Sure, on this particular pitching staff, Nola may be the closest thing Hamels has to an equal, but Hamels was speaking about the majors generally. Nola's 21-2 record and state-player-of-the-year award at Catholic, his 30-6 record and 0.88 WHIP at LSU, his impressive 29 starts in the Phillies' minor-league system after they made him their first-round draft pick last year, the anticipation and expectations - these elements and achievements count for something beyond Baton Rouge, beyond his hometown's collective pride. They give him credibility within a major-league clubhouse, too.

"When you're a first-rounder, all that pressure is put on you anyway," said Hamels, who broke in with the Phillies in 2006, four years after they had drafted him in the first round. "You are the new guy, but you're the guy they're looking at because you're supposed to make a difference. You are the best. Wherever you were, you were the best. Now you're in a group with all of them.

"I was hoping they would let him come up for big-league camp, but you know how it works. I didn't get called up my first year, either. They want you to earn it. I think he's earned it."

He gave no indication against Tampa Bay that he hadn't: six innings, five hits, one walk, six strikeouts, one costly mistake - a fastball that Rays pitcher Nathan Karns launched into the left-field seats in the third inning for a solo home run. And if nothing else, Nola received the full Phillies treatment Tuesday: Domonic Brown misplayed a catchable fly ball to right field into a single. Cody Asche was thrown out trying to go from first to third on a Brown single. Odubel Herrera loafed to first base on a ground ball he thought was foul, leading to an inning-ending double play. The team mustered just four hits, one of which was a single by Nola himself.

"Maybe a DH as well," Kelly said in a text message after Nola's hit.

In Baton Rouge, they've believed for a long time that Aaron Nola could do anything. In Philadelphia, they don't need him to. For now, they just need him to do what he did Tuesday: to pitch well, to handle himself with poise, to give everyone at Citizens Bank Park a reason to be excited again. It wouldn't seem like much. But in this Phillies season, with this Phillies future, it feels like everything.

@MikeSielski