Hamels Wins & Watches His Stock Rise

Hamels looked trade-ably good Monday.

Cole Hamels won his first game of the season, Carlos Ruiz went 4-for-4 and the Phillies came from behind to hand the St. Louis Cardinals only their 2nd home loss of the year.  The First Place Cardinals fell to 12-6, while the Phils moved into a tie for Third Place in the NL East.

The Phils trailed 1-0 at the end of 6 innings, but plated 3 in the 7th inning and one more in the 9th to win it 4-1.  Cole Hamels (1-2, 3.19 ERA) walked 4, but S.O. 9 in 7 innings, allowing 4 hits and just the 1 run.

Hamels had plenty of motivation to shine.  He has been vocal about his desire to be traded to a contender.  The Phillies, meanwhile, have been steadfast in their demands for top-notch prospects in exchange for the premier lefty.  Consequently, Hamels best shot at being traded has been that a contending team's need grows, likely in the form of an injury to a key starting pitcher, which would force that team to give up more than they otherwise might to get him.

Well, that just happened times 2.

Before Monday's game in St. Louis, the Cardinals announced that starting pitcher Adam Wainwright will miss the entire rest of the season due to a torn Achilles ankle injury he suffered while batting on April 25th. 

Losing Wainwright is a titanic loss for the Cardinals, who are off to one of their best starts in recent years, despite a high bar of 2 World Series appearances in the past 4 years. Wainwright has helped his team to a MLB best 2.39 team ERA with a 1.44 ERA this year.  He also won 20 games for them last season, has a lifetime 121-67 record and has placed in the top 3 in Cy Young voting in 4 separate seasons.  His importance to his team cannot be overemphasized.  Needless to say, the Cardinals will seek to replace him.  Hamels had been linked to the Cardinals in trade rumors, even before this injury, during the off-season and preseason.  However, the Cardinals had been unwilling to part with certain key prospects that the Phillies insisted on acquiring in return.

Another team that showed interest in Hamels during the offseason, but refused to surrender the top prospects the Phillies required was the Los Angeles Dodgers, who also announced today the loss of a key (although not as vital as the Cardinals') starting pitcher.

The First-Place Dodgers' Brandon McCarthy was ruled out for the season and part of the next one. McCarthy, who entered the season as Los Angeles' No. 3 starter (because of an injury to Hyun-Jin Ryu) suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament, an injury that will likely require Tommy John surgery, which has been known to end pitchers careers.

Rookie OF Odubel 'Hair' Herrera.

Phils CF Odubel Herrera had 3 hits Monday, including an RBI single in the 7th, although he was thrown out trying to stretch it to a double.  The exciting 23 year-old Venezuelan rookie is now hitting .300 and has hit safely in 9 of his last 10 games.

OF Domonic Brown is finishing a DL stint that has kept him sidelined all season and will rejoin the team soon, which will force someone to the bench.  It's unlikely to be Herrera, who is playing well and who the team is high on.  That leaves either Ben Revere or 31 year-old veteran journeyman Jeff Francoeur.  

Revere, 26, has the edge.  Francoeur started the season hot and even hit a couple HR early, but was signed by the rebuilding Phillies as a role player and nothing more.  Revere, was acquired by the team in 2013 as a piece of the future.  He hit .300 in each of his first 2 seasons with the Phils, and they will give him a lot of room to rebound from his miserable start.  He is hitting a paltry .200 thus far, but Monday had the game-winning hit in the Phils breakout 7th with a 2-out 2-RBI ground rule double to left, which plated Ruiz and Freddy Galvis to give the Phils the lead.

An outfield of Revere, Hererra and Brown would actually have a lot of potential, although an alarmingly lackluster upside when it comes to power, since the vast majority of MLB teams boast power-hitting outfielders.  However, rebuilding teams have to have patience in their players.  Revere has 2 career HR (both last season) and an infamous lack of power, Brown has shown flashes of power in clusters, followed by long outages in his 5-year career.  Notably, in 2013, he hit 27 HR, posted a .494 SLG % and seemed to be finally rising to the hype that had surrounded him for so long.  Then, of course, 2014 was a major step backward, when Brown stumbled to .235 with just 10 HR.   (As noted, Brown has yet to play this year, but will rejoin the team shortly.) 

Hererra hasn't hit his first MLB HR, but has posted terrific power numbers so far.  He sports a .429 SLG % and has 7 extra-base hits, including 3 in 1 game on 4/15.

It will be interesting to see what Manager Ryan Sandberg and company do with the outfield when Brown returns.

Utley Breaks Out

Utley 1, Harvey 0.

After a terrific Spring, Chase Utley started the 2015 season 2-for-22 for a .091 batting average.  Things didn't figure to improve against elite Mets pitcher Matt Harvey (2-0, 2.25, 0.83 WHIP).  In fact, Harvey was acing his first inning in his heavily advertised return to Citi-Field in N.Y. after last year's season-ending surgery prematurely ended his Cy Young bid.

The first 2 Phillies batters were Odubel Herrera and Freddy Galvis.  Harvey struck both out on a total of 7 pitches.  Harvey froze each of the young batters with strike one looking.

With 2 out and nobody on, 36 year-old Chase Utley stepped up to the plate.  He patiently looked at ball one.  Then, he fouled one off.  Next was strike 2 looking.  After the 1st 2 batters went down on strikes, with Utley deep in a funk and Harvey in total command, it didn't look good.

Next pitch?  Utley sent one deep to right, a 350 foot HR, his first of the season, but not his last of the night.  Utley would add an RBI single in the 3rd off Harvey, as well.  It appears that Harvey had enough of getting beat by Utley, because he hit him with a pitch in the 5th (payback for Phils starter Buchanan-- 0-2, 11.42 ERA-- beaming a Met), which capped Utley's perfect night against the Mets Ace right hander.

The Phils lost 6-5 in N.Y. Tuesday, but eyebrows were raised and bases were circled as the Phils hit 4 HR in all.  Phils 3rd baseman Cody Asche hit one of them, a 398 footer off Harvey.

Utley turns a double play.

“It was a fun game to play,” Asche said. “A lot of different things going on in that game, with the hype of Harvey, a couple of pitches getting away from [Buchanan] and them coming back and hitting Chase. It was intense. It’s what you come to expect in games against our division and teams we play so much. Tensions are going to rise now and again.”

In the 8th, Utley faced a new pitcher, reliever Sean Gilmartin.  Utley looked at strike one, then a ball, before taking Gilmartin deep on the 3rd pitch of his first ever at-bat against the rookie.  A 385 foot HR to right gave Utley a perfect night: 3-3, 2 R, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 1 HBP.

His average leapt to .200.  It's a start.  Last season, Utley was voted the NL starting All-Star Second Baseman.  Nights like Tuesday, remind the baseball world why he was an MVP candidate in his prime and Philly fans why we're lucky to call him a Phillies lifer.  Like Schmidt, Utley has a chance to be known in one MLB uniform only.  In a season largely bereft of hope, an Utley perfect night gives fans, if not reason to hope, certainly reason to smile.