LOS ANGELES – Cole Hamels is ready for his close-up. He has the right stuff and the steely sensibilities. The dominant pitcher of this baseball October is a star at ease beneath the bright spotlights on the big stage.
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The Phillies' Cole Hamels, throwing here in Game 1 of the NLCS against the Dodgers, is ready to take his place on the mound in Game 5.
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He awaits his cue with confidence, as poised for tonight's opportunity to pitch the Philadelphia Phillies into the World Series as if he were back throwing batting practice at Rancho Bernardo High.
Hamels has come a long way at 24 years old, but not so far that he has encountered anxiety.
“Going out there in the big game, you want to be the guy that can dictate it,” the Phillies left-hander said of tonight's playoff start against the Los Angeles Dodgers. “And I think if you have the mindset and the talent to do so, then you should be able to go out there and have success.”
Hamels has talent aplenty and a mindset to match. He has won both of his postseason starts this month for the Phillies, and has dominated the Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers with 17 strikeouts against eight scattered hits. He will take the mound for Game 5 of the National League Championship Series having allowed more than two earned runs only once in his past 12 starts.
He has come a long way through a series of modest, measured movements. That and a killer change-up.
“During the year, I go pitch by pitch,” Hamels said. “I know I have 33-34 starts during the year that I can go out there and win. . . . If I can do a significant amount of damage with creating wins, that helps you get to the postseason.
“When the postseason does occur, you have to attack it the same way, and with the same philosophy that I've had all year: going one game at a time, one inning at a time, one pitch at a time. You have to break it down into small increments so you don't let the excitement carry you away.”
Cole Hamels has been able to break baseball down into such small particles that the sum never seems to amount to too much. He is openly ambitious, yet so matter-of-fact that the combination sometimes confounds Philadelphia's fans.
The simple stereotype is that he's a smooth Southern California kid competing in a tough Eastern town that prefers the gritty to the gifted. The truth is more complex.
“He can appear aloof,” wrote Bob Ford of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “but that is only camouflage for a shy personality wrapped around an obsessive competitor.”
“He's a driven athlete,” said John Boggs, Hamels' San Diego-based agent. “Fearless, too. He didn't pitch at all his junior year (because of injury), but when I met him, I was really impressed that in his mind there was basically no doubt that he would pitch effectively and pitch with confidence.
“He knows if he's able to get on the mound and be healthy, the only person that can beat him is himself.”
To illustrate, Boggs recounts the story of Hamels' first taste of the big leagues, a March 5, 2004 spring training game against the New York Yankees. Summoned to pitch the fifth inning, the 20-year-old Hamels promptly struck out Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez and Tony Clark.
“What's this young man's name again?” asked Frank Torre, whose kid brother then managed the Yankees.
“Cole Hamels,” Boggs replied.
“Wow,” Frank Torre said. “That's pretty impressive.”
Joe Torre manages the Dodgers now, and doesn't need a scorecard to know who and what he's up against.
“He's a guy that likes his change-up, there's no question,” Joe Torre said of Hamels. “He's got a breaking ball. He can get the fastball up in the '90s, which certainly keeps you from dismissing that and looking for something else.
“I still think the key for us is to go up there and just have a plan individually on what we want to go up there and look for and hit, because it's tough to go up there and decide that you're going to do this and do that and come back empty, because he's able to command his pitches.”
While working 227 1/3 innings during the regular season, Hamels hit only one batter (the Padres' Adrian Gonzalez) and threw zero wild pitches. His strikeout-to-walk ratio was 3.7-to-1.
That Hamels won only 14 games during the regular season would seem to be a function of his skimpy run support, for this is a guy who puts the ball pretty much where he pleases. His is the arm that could overwhelm this October.
“I know I have the talent to do it,” Hamels said of performing in the playoffs. “It's just a matter of time and getting that opportunity to do it.
“I've had the opportunity this year and I've been able to not only come through, but hopefully put us into more situations where I can do it again and again and again.”
He has come a long way, and he's only just begun.
Tim Sullivan: (619) 293-1033; tim.sullivan@uniontrib.com
