Phillies Nation

I kind of agree with Chris. His ERA agaisnt the Mets is in the 7s now I think! And as much as I love what he did in the play offs last year, it was the Brew Crew, the Dodgers, and the Rays! I can think of maybe 5 threatening batters combined on those teams and that’s a stretch! Don’t think for one second it will be that easy this year! Having said that, it’s not like the man is making bad pitches.

Hamels’ problem is, he is doing what he should have done in spring training which is trying to find a third pitch. I’m fine with that early in the season. But even tonight, that change up was what was getting them out. Not his attempt at throwing a cutter.

Hamels is young, I think we’ve yet to see the best he can do. I have feeling he’ll rebound eventually. I’m done playing the blame game. He’s good enough to see his way out of this. Even if this is the best we can hope for from him this year, it’s not like Lee, Blanton, Happ, Martinez/Moyer are stinking up the joint. The Phils will be fine.

Yeah I love how he acts like he just won the World Series tonight! Dude, your 13.5 games back! It ain’t happening!

come on, hamels. figure it out before october

Well last night is over, I just hope to God we win this series. If we don’t win the series then it is a serious disappointment. Everyone else beats on the Mets so the Phillies better.

Cole Hamels has made 24 starts this season and has given up 4+ earned runs in 10 of them and failed to go 6 innings in 10 of them. Utterly disappointing.

Why…WHY does this website never seem to give Hamels the Jeltz when he so clearly deserves it? Cole Hamels was supposed to be our ace. He sure as hell isn’t acting like it, because we ain’t winning the division if our games against our divisional opponents go like this.

You know I slept this one off a bit after slugging down a bit too much Old Grandad last night and I came to the conclusion that while Hamels has struggled, these last handful of outing haven’t been too terrible. As bad as last night was, you would think the offense wouldn’t have looked so asleep.

Yes Hamels had hard time locating last night, but at least 4 of the hits were infield hits, and the first hit should have been an out if Peter Happy was playing, really only 2 hard hit singles and the HR. So I think you people have to relax a little, Cole has not pitched great, but he also has run in to some bad luck also. When September rolls around
Cole will dominate

something i was thinking about last night is that it seems like cole’s fastball has lost something since last season. i’m not talking about MPH or even location, but maybe deception or some movement on it? it just feels like you almost never see him strike anyone out with his fastball this season… when he tries to get a K with a fastball is when he gets into those long foul ball battles. while the changeup has always been his out pitch, he used to be able to get SOME strikeouts with his fastball also.

Gavin i totally agree with you. He has been having year and everyone wants the way he was last year.

Cole’s suffering from the same problem Myers went throgh and it’s all about the fastball, he’s got the velocity and can throw it for strikes but he’s misplaced the ability to command it and if he can’t command his fastball doesn’t matter whether he adds a cut or a sink to it beause the hitters wait on something meaty. Then because of the poor fastball and a growing lack of faith in it Cole starts throwing his change to get ahead (just like Myers was using his curve when he was struggling) and letting guys see his entire arsenal and cherry pick their pitch in too many ABs. To top it off when he isn’t setting up his change effectively he can’t throw that great circle-change down and away from the hitter and any pitcher who looses his primary pitch is going to drop down a level.

I don’t think the importance of the of-season can be under-estimated, baseballs all about routine and adjustments and Cole didn’t reapeat or improve on his his off-season prep, seems a pretty clear reason why he’s struggling to me.

I agree… Hamels should’ve “won” the Jeltz, not Werth

Hamels’ poor performance-by now the rule rather than the exception -overshadowsed a huge problem with this team. The frustrating inabilty to get runners in from 3rd with < 2 outs.

Then again, they sucked at it all last years too,until the last 2 innings of the WS.