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Yesterday's game against the Marlins was really frustrating, but what we saw from Cole Hamels might be infinitely more valuable than one series loss.
For the first time this season, Cole Hamels resembled the guy from a couple years ago. After a slow start, Hamels was downright nasty.
I bet many fans were beginning to hit the panic button on Cole Hamels during the first few innings of the game. He only allowed one 329 foot homer, but Hamels looked very hittable and quite frankly very average. His command was ok, but his pitches were flat and there wasn't much remarkable at all. However, he continued one positive trend during those first few frames in that he avoided having that one big meltdown inning we saw a lot of last year. That's all well and good, but we expect more than just good composure by Cole Hamels.
Then somewhere around the fourth inning, Hamels hit his groove. He had good location, excellent movement on his changeup and cutter, and a decent curveball. We finally saw in this outing the evidence of the cutter he has been working on all offseason and a fastball with movement. It's hard to tell the difference between the fastball and cutter, but whatever he threw had excellent downward movement that Marlins hitters couldn't touch. Add to that an improved curveball, and there is now an element of unpredictability we haven't seen from Hamels in over a year.
That said, Hamels is still a work in progress. That may not be what you want to hear from your former ace, but he is still going through a bit of on-the-job training with his two new pitches. So don't be surprised if he has a few clunkers in the near future. But mark my word, at the end of the season his stuff will be there and then WATCH OUT.
I know it was just one outing, but we saw clear evidence of what Cole's stuff can do. Now he just needs to perfect it...and he will. |
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