Hamels Terrific in Shutout Win

Seven innings, four hits, one walk and eight strikeouts.  There were probably three hard hit balls all afternoon.  The Cole Hamels from his debut was nowhere to be found as the 27 year old left hander completely silenced the Braves line-up today.  There is a pretty substantial, reactionary segment of the Philadelphia fan-base that is, go figure, reactionary when bad things happen to members of the team.  Hamels seems to bear he brunt of the malice wielded by the fans.  People want to trade him, they make fun of the way he talks, they call him soft and state that he does not have the fortitude to be an effective major league pitcher.

In his debut, Cole was banged around pretty good by the craptastic craps that comprise the crappy Mets line-up and everyone freaked out.  Hopefully today’s start will calm everyone down a little bit.

Cole was opposed today by Derek Lowe who has held the collective Phillies line-up to a .182 batting average.  Lowe was almost as good as Hamels today going seven innings allowing seven hits and two runs.  The only member of the Phils that Lowe could not handle was leadoff hitter Shane Victorino who went 3-4 with a home run and two runs scored.  Luckily, Shane’s big day provided just enough offense to back Cole’s gem.

We also got another chance to check out Jose Contreras in the closers role.  Jose faced Chipper Jones, Brian McCann and Dan Uggla consecutively and induced two groundouts and struck out Uggla.  I am a big fan of Cuban defectors in major league baseball.  Do you think that there is honestly anything that can happen in a baseball game that is going to bother someone who had to leave their entire extended family behind?  In addition, go screw Dan Uggla.  I hate that guy.  Contreras earned the save in a 3-0 Phils shut out giving the Phillies the series win.

Currently, the Atlanta Braves are three and one half games behind the Phillies in the standings.  I know its extremely early, but it is always nice to take a series from the Braves.  It is always nice to not have to freak out and throw a television out the window in response to that stupid team that won fourteen straight division championships when they were running out great pitchers and the Phils had Omar freaking Daal.  I should probably calm down.

The Phils next game brings them to their home away from home against the Washington Nationals.  This is the first opportunity that we get to see the Nats number two hitter Jayson Werth.  The pitching matchup is Joe Blanton versus Livan Hernandez.  See you on Tuesday Jayson.