By FRANK WARD
DailyPhiladelphian.com Editor
A year removed from a sub par season, former Phillies ace Cole Hamels is off to a 2-0 start for the 6-1 Fightins. Make no mistake, he’s far from reliable at this point and nowhere near being back to the old Cole.
Colebrt has an unimpressive 5.06 ERA in 10.2 innings against a Nationals team that is better, but still far behind a legit MLB lineup. He has 11 Ks vs. 5 walks.
Cole Hamels has a long way to go to regain his World Series MVP form.
The only reason he is 2-0 is the Phillies red hot bats. They’ve scored 15 runs in his two starts, including seven in Monday’s win over the Nats.
Hamels only had one horrible inning on Monday, and another inning in which the long ball hurt him. He only lasted 5.2 innings on Monday, meaning he has yet to get out of the sixth this year.
Granted it’s early and he is working on incorporating a new pitch into his repertoire. Having said that, he still shows that one bad call can get to him. In the fourth inning Monday, he had two on and no outs and almost got out of the inning giving up one run. However, a bad non-call by the home plate umpire that should have resulted in a strikeout and the end of the inning affected Cole. He promptly gave up a two-run base hit.
The other thing that strikes me as a bad sign is how eerily similar Cole is to Brett Myers in the beginning of the 2008 season. Myers was hurt by HRs and usually had one horrid inning that cost him games and leveled his confidence. As we know, Myers ended up in the minors and regained his form that helped the Phils capture the World Series.
The issue with Cole is, if he gets sent to the minors — and we are nowhere close to that yet — I’m not sure he has the psyche to handle it.
If he doesn’t turn it around, he’ll lose to better teams, or when the Phils bats go cold — and they will at some point. It’s the law of averages.
Cole won’t pitch his way to the bullpen or minors, because if he ends up there, he’s done.
However, Cole can pitch himself back into a staff ace, or to another town. If he doesn’t pick it up, don’t be surprised to see the Phils dangle him at the trade deadline for a veteran pitcher in the final year of a contract. At 26, he still has tremendous upside and a decent trade value.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.
