Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Game Day Post: Cole "Pinto" Hamels

I know what you're saying. "Pinto? I thought his middle name was Michael!" Yeah, that might be what his birth certificate and the government says. But based on his latest string of performances, I think Pinto is more approriate, eh? He erupts and explodes into a ball of fiery, sloppy, ugly pitches at any given moment, usually within the first inning, and most likely resulting in at least one home run.

Game two of the series against the Pittsburgh Pirates continues tonight, and we're down 0-1. Cole's 7-8 with an ERA of 4.78. This month, hes 0-for-3 with a no decision on August 15th against the Atlanta Braves, and hasn't logged a win since July 28th against the Arizona Diamondbacks. As our "ace" making $4.35 million this year, I expect a little more. At 7:05 EST, he'll be facing the relatively comparable Paul Maholm.

Maholm, two years older than Cole at 27, is 7-7 with a 4.74 ERA. Even their strikeouts are in the same area - Maholm's 98 to Hamels's 119. Before his August 19th win against the Milwaukee Brewers, he either lost or had a no decision in every appearance since beating the Houston Astros on July 7th.

Sure, there's an impending baby on the way in October. Yes, we did just acquire Clifton Phifer Lee, who is currently kicking his stringbean butt up and down the basepaths, using his Hollywood hair as his personal sweatrag. Some (okay, most) may say that he's swiped his "ace" status from him in just five starts. I'm among those people. By no means is Cole very high up on The Brad Lidge Scale of Horrific, but if he keeps slipping down this slope, he's gonna be there in no time.

I don't know what's going on under that softy, shiny coif, but Cole, get your head on straight and knock 'em dead. Please, do anything you need to do to guarantee us a big enough lead to prevent us from a fifth straight night of Brad Lidge. Please?! If you don't, I won't have any hair or fingernails by this time tomorrow.

And for those who don't know of the mystique of the Ford Pinto (I'm too young as well, but I've seen a lot of those I Love the 70s shows...), check this out to see what all the rage is about.

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