Old King Cole
I must be honest: I watched exactly zero innings of last night’s Phillies game. I tend to tune out of the West Coast swings, with the attendant 10pm starts, for the simple reason that I hate watching a few innings and then missing the ending. It’s like watching only the first half hour of “Twilight,” except that “Twilight” sucks and the Phillies are awesome (4 games up on the division! Woooo). So this morning I got up and checked the box score on my phone.
What the heck? Cole Hamels pitched a gem! A diamond, baby! As someone who prefers good pitching and smallball to “let’s all just swing for the fences and see what happens” (and who, while I’d never question a World Fing Champion manager and GM, frequently gets annoyed with the way the Phils play the game), I kinda wish I’d stayed up.
Oh right, my daughter kept me up all night the night before, and didn’t do much better last night. (She ended up sleeping next to us so that we could rub her belly anytime she started screaming with the gas and constipation she’s got going on this week.)
Anyway, what’s keeping Cole from doing this every night, or at least more frequently than once a month? It’s not like he was facing scrubs; the Dodgers have the best record in either league by a large margin. He shut them down. Is he finally in shape for the season? I’m not asking for a shutout every night, but I think we should expect more from our ace than a 4.40 season ERA.
