Cole Hamels could clinch for Phillies, slowly
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Cole Hamels starts tonight for the Philadelphia Phillies, with the chance to win their first World Series title since 1980 and the city’s first championship in any major sport since 1983.
Hamels grew up in the baseball-crazy San Diego area, facing the same issue that confronts so many prep pitchers across Southern California: How can I stand out when so many kids throw so hard?
With an assist to longtime Padres closer Trevor Hoffman, baseball’s all-time save leader, Hamels decided to throw slow. Hoffman’s signature pitch is a change-up. And, as you’ll see tonight, the same is true for Hamels.
In this interview in advance of tonight’s start, Hamels talks about pitching slow in the era of the radar gun:
Growing up in San Diego, the competition is so heavy that guys can hit 95-mile-an-hour fastballs. Every year, there’s at least three or four top-round picks drafted out of San Diego County. So you can’t really try to base everything on pitching off your fastball. You can’t really go out there and think that I can blow away everybody, like some people can do in the United States and in college or in high school. But where I grew up, Trevor Hoffman, the save leader there, all his success is because of a change-up. And so I saw that; my high school coach taught me how to throw it, but it was really me going out there and trying to trust it, because when I was growing up, I didn’t throw 95. That was something that came about when I was about 19, 20. And throwing the low 80s, that’s batting practice to guys. You have to throw something that can make an 85-mile-an-hour pitch look 95, and that’s what I did with my change-up.
-- Bill Shaikin