Aaron Nola flattens the Brewers to finish off a Phillies sweep — with help from his defense

The Phillies’ 2-0 win over the visiting Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday afternoon was similar to their previous two. The top of the lineup was quiet — with the exception of a towering two-run home run by Nick Castellanos in the fifth inning. The Phillies leaned on strong pitching from Aaron Nola — and a bullpen that now has a 1.81 ERA since May 1 — along with strong defense.

Nola is usually efficient, but he was on a different level against the Brewers. The Phillies right-hander needed just 71 pitches to get through six innings. He needed 93 to get through seven.

Of those 93 pitches, 68 were strikes. He allowed just two hits over his seven scoreless innings with no walks and five strikeouts. The Brewers made hard contact on only three pitches against Nola, and two of those resulted in outs.

“I thought he was a really good,” manager Rob Thomson said of Nola. “His breaking ball was really sharp, his command was really, really, really good. I thought in that seventh inning, I thought he sort of emptied the tank, even though he only had 93 pitches. Got out of that inning.”

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Nola now has a 2.77 ERA. As a staff, the Phillies now have four starters who rank in the top 10 in National League in ERA: Ranger Suárez (first, with a 1.70 ERA), Zack Wheeler (third, 2.23), Cristopher Sanchez (fifth, 2.71 ERA), and Nola (sixth).

The Phillies’ starters and relievers gave up a total of seven runs over their three-game set against the Brewers. It was not a small feat, against a team that entered this series averaging 5.15 runs per game and leading the NL Central at 36-23.

“We only gave up two against a really high-powered offense,” said Thomson. “It says a lot about the pitching staff, about Caleb [Cotham], about [Brian] Kaplan, about Cesar [Ramos]. All the analytics people. It was just a great series, from the pitching side and from the defensive side.”

Jeff Hoffman pitched a hitless eighth, with one walk and one strikeout. José Alvarado allowed one hit and struck out three in the ninth for his 11th save.

There were a few savvy defensive plays to choose from, but Bryson Stott’s leap to grab a line drive off Gary Sánchez’s bat and catcher Garrett Stubbs’ play at the plate to prevent a run from scoring stuck out.

In the third inning, with a runner on first and no outs, Stott caught the liner hit by Sánchez at the top of his glove to curtail any momentum the Brewers were building. Nola then induced back-to-back groundouts to end the frame.

In the seventh inning, William Contreras hit a leadoff double and moved to third on a Christian Yelich groundout. Willy Adames then hit a ball that took an awkward bounce just before it reached third baseman Alec Bohm.

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Bohm fielded it cleanly and fired the ball to Stubbs at home plate in time for the catcher to tag out Contreras.

“[The defense] has been awesome,” Nola said. “The guys have been studs out there. Infield, outfield, behind the dish. What a series on defense, this series, it was pretty awesome. Especially when you got guys in the other dugout that are really fast, and cause havoc on the bases.”

It was another playoff-like game. The Phillies combined for only three hits against a tough Brewers pitching staff, with five walks and four strikeouts. But they did just enough to manage a series sweep against a team that was well above .500.

The Phillies are now 25 games above .500.

“Coming from somebody that’s been on a lot of bad teams, yes, I can definitely appreciate it,” said Castellanos. “Winning is so much fun, honestly. And it solves every problem in an organization. There’s no doubt about that. But the realist in me knows there is so much baseball left, and it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”

Join Inquirer Phillies writers Scott Lauber and Alex Coffey at noon Saturday to discuss all things Phillies and take your questions before the team takes on the Mets in London.