According to David Murphy, Charlie Manuel will not move Cole Hamels up a day (to Friday) so he can pitch against the Mets next week. Instead, the Mets will see Jamie Moyer and Kyle Kendrick.
Murphy said Manuel and pitching coach Rich Dubee don’t want to rush Hamels, as he leads the National League in innings and he’s at a crucial mark (he was injured after 170 innings last season and is at 181.2 now).
I can see their reasoning for not pushing Hamels up, but it’s not as if he’s losing a full day of rest. Currently he has 5.5 days rest by going Saturday. If he went Friday, he’d have close to a full five days rest. Plus, didn’t Hamels say the long rest during and after the All-Star break plagued him a bit? And just to back this up with stats, unusually, Hamels has a 2.74 ERA with regular four days rest and a 4.30 ERA with five days rest.
Tim MalcolmTim first found the Phillies as a little infant at Veteran’s Stadium, cheering on a Juan Samuel game-winning home run in his very first game. With the pinstripes in his blood, he witnessed Terry Mulholland’s 1990 no-hitter, “Steve Carlton Night” at the Vet, game three of the 1993 World Series, countless games during the charmed 2008 championship season and various road excursions. Since November 2007 Tim’s been writing about them daily at Phillies Nation, becoming one of the world’s most popular Phillies scribes. You can catch him on Twitter and Facebook, as well. When he’s not talking about the Phils he’s relaxing with a St. Bernardus ABT 12 or one of his many favored brews.
