One of the most encouraging signs from the Phillies in the last month is the steady improvement of Cole Hamels. The former staff ace is looking more and more like the pitcher who went undefeated in the 2008 playoffs.
Hamels has only given up 7 runs in his 5 May starts, down from 18 runs in his 5 April starts. His focus has been much better this month, with his only poor outing being against Atlanta when he lapsed into old habits and lost control of the situation. 3 of those 7 runs came against the Braves.
Hamels is consistently going deep into games; he has pitched into the 7th inning in 4 of his last 5 starts. He only pitched past the 6th inning once in his first five outings.
Hamels came into this season with a much stronger mental approach than he had in 2009 when he was hung-over from his 2008 superstar heroics. Even though he struggled early this year, he’s kept his head up. Last year Hamels would let issues from previous starts, innings, or batters carry over and impact his current play. It was supposed to be easy for the superstar, and the struggles bothered him to no end. This year, despite the early struggles, Hamels seems to be building on what he does right in his poor starts rather than getting overly frustrated with what went wrong.
Hamels flashed his top form only occasionally in 2009. It’s been well over a year since he’s put together such a consistent string of quality starts. He has already won half as many games this year as he won all of last season.
Now comfortable in his role as the number 2 starter, Hamels still has plenty of room to grow and improve, but he certainly is headed in the right direction.
I probably have been harder on C Hamels than anyone on here…
But over the last 3-4 starts, he has gotten his mojo back. Friday noghts game was the best he has pitched since the playoffs of 2008, He used his Curve-ball early in the counts to freeze batters and back them off the plate and then got them chasing his rising fastball.. He has the talent and the arm no doubt,
what he has been doing recently and needs to do is trust his stuff more, and go after the batters and mix his pitches up better.. If he continues this, then they sky is the limit.. Glad to see him returning to to form and congratualte him for working hard which is starting to pay off.. His endurance looks stronger and even his body langauage has improved where sometimes he looks sulky and lets the umpires calls effect him…
Mixing in his curve well too. It seems that he is starting to get over the fact that batters are fouling off his changup to stay alive. He has been giving up hits on 0-2 and 1-2 counts leaving his changeup up, but it is happening less often.