Aaron Nola has one-upped Zack Wheeler this fall. With a repeat, the Phillies are in the World Series.

A few weeks ago, before the Phillies put a bow on the regular season, Aaron Nola stood in a quiet corner of the third-base dugout at Citi Field in New York and listed all the things he admires about Zack Wheeler.

”He’s been so consistent for us.”

”A lot of guys throw hard and just throw, but he knows how to pitch.”

”He has his routine, sticks with his routine, and doesn’t really waver off that.”

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This went on for a while before Nola finally paused. He smiled, like he was about to spill a secret.

“Yeah, man,” he said, “Wheels is my favorite guy to watch pitch.”

Indeed, Nola enjoys it almost as much as following Wheeler’s tough act.

Because Wheeler sets the bar impossibly high, especially in the playoffs. A year after posting a 2.78 ERA in a half-dozen starts, here are his numbers in four starts this October: 2.08 ERA, 26 innings, 17 hits, 2 walks, 34 strikeouts. As Bryce Harper put it Saturday night in Arizona, “It’s incredible what he does.”

And yet, somehow, Nola has one-upped him.

After Wheeler gave up one run in 6⅔ innings in the wild-card opener against the Marlins, Nola chucked seven scoreless innings in Game 2. After Wheeler held the Diamondbacks to two runs in six innings in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series, Nola shut them out for six innings the next night. Nola’s ERA in three starts this postseason: 0.96. His strikeout-to-walk ratio: 19-to-2.

“It just goes to show what type of competitor he is,” Wheeler said.

Including last year, Nola has a 2.00 ERA in six postseason starts that immediately followed a Wheeler start. The next will come Monday night — one year to the day after the Phillies clinched the pennant, and one game after Wheeler spun a seven-inning gem to push the Phillies to within one victory of returning to the World Series.

To the Diamondbacks, or at least to Arizona baseball historians, this must look startlingly familiar. In 2001, Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling became the quintessential one-two postseason pitching punch. The Big Unit went 5-1 with a 1.52 ERA; Big Schill went 4-0 with a 1.12 mark. They dominated, and the D’backs edged the Yankees in Game 7 of a classic World Series.

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Since then, only four sets of teammates have posted a 2.25 ERA or better while logging at least 15 innings in the postseason: Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner (2010 Giants); Ryan Vogelsong and Barry Zito (2012 Giants); Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Doug Fister, and Aníbal Sánchez (2012 Tigers); Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks (2016 Cubs). Each of those teams went to the World Series. All but the 2012 Tigers won it.

Wheeler and Nola have that look. Add in Ranger Suárez — 0.64 ERA in 14 innings over three starts — and the Phillies’ starting pitching has excelled in the postseason as much as any team in the last 20 years.

“The Nola-Wheeler combo,” Marlins manager Skip Schumaker said, “is as good as you’re going to find in the major leagues.”

Wheeler’s postseason success was easy to forecast. He has been among the best pitchers in baseball since joining the Phillies in 2020, his five-year, $118 million contract representing one of the best free-agent deals in franchise history.

Nola was far less of a sure thing. For 32 starts, he battled the pitch clock and, quite possibly, the pressure of betting on himself after not getting close to agreeing on a contract extension in spring training. In his free-agent walk year, he posted a 4.46 ERA, gave up 32 homers, and struggled to keep one- or two-run rallies from blowing up into four- and five-run innings.

There were late-season adjustments to help control the running game while maintaining his command. Nola squared his shoulders and straightened his stride to the plate rather than throwing across his body. He gave in to using a slide step. He leaned more on his changeup.

» READ MORE: How does Bryce Harper thrive under playoff pressure? He’s lived with it since he was 16.

“Lately it’s been a little more consistency, delivery-wise, especially in the postseason,” Nola said. “Everything matters so much right now, right?”

Nola‘s return to acehood this month will likely make him tens of millions in free agency and perhaps even push him closer to a $200 million payday, not that he’s thinking about that at the moment. He says he has homed in only on the things that he’s able to control. Unless it involves his mechanics or command of his pitches, he doesn’t have time for it.

After Nola beat the Diamondbacks in Game 2, somebody noted that it could have been his last start for the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. There was a chance the NLCS would end in Arizona, and if the Phillies face the Rangers in the World Series, his starts would likely come in Texas. Nola said it never entered his mind.

“I saw this article on Roy Halladay and what he said years ago,” Nola said before Game 5. “He said something like, pitchers will get caught up in the seven innings or three runs or less all the time. He always said that he controls [only] the next pitch that he throws and tries to make that a quality pitch.

“I kind of read deep into that, and it’s true, right? At the end of the day, what’s our main job? Our main job is to compete and to try to make quality pitches and to control the strike zone and do our little goals each outing and try to succeed in those.”

In the postseason, Nola often measures his goals against Wheeler’s results in the previous game. Anything Wheeler does, Nola tries to do better. Irving Berlin wrote a song about something like that.

“Last year in St. Louis, him starting it off, dealing, it made me want to go out and do the same thing, man,” Nola said, referring to the 2022 wild-card round. “That was a big series, fun series. Since then, I just want to try to follow Wheels up as best as possible. He sets the tone out there.”

And Nola reinforces it.

Once more, and the Phillies will be back in the World Series.