Game Four: Hamels Roughed Up

Whether we want to admit or not, most of us had our qualms about Cole Hamels’ first start this afternoon in Colorado. After all, he didn’t pitch all that much during spring training as a result of the elbow stiffness he experienced in mid-March. Plus, when we last saw Cole in Saturday’s Spring Training finale against Tampa, he didn’t exactly look sharp.

Well, after today, we can draw one fairly obvious conclusion: Cole Hamels is not ready for regular season baseball. In 3.2 innings, Hamels allowed 7 earned runs on 11 hits and a walk. This wasn’t exactly the outing we had hoped for from our World Series MVP. Hamels’ velocity wasn’t where it needs to be for him to dominate a game like he did last postseason. Couple that with the fact he left a good number of pitches in the middle of the plate today, where I could even hit the ball hard and you have all of the elements that lead to that kind of line.

Cole’s struggles today fit perfectly with the subpar starting pitching we’ve seen all week. This team needs to get this starting pitching conundrum solved before it isn’t ‘early’ anymore.

Next up, Brett Myers tries to even his record when he makes his second start of the season against Colorado tomorrow night.