The Rangers have no shot to win the World Series with a terrible Cole Hamels
The Texas Rangers can hit. They can play a little bit of defense, too. What they don’t have is a rotation capable of winning — or even competing for — the World Series — if Cole Hamels continues to pitch the way he did Thursday in Game 1 of the ALDS.
Hamels, one of the Rangers’ two aces along with Yu Darvish, turned in a dud performance in the first game of the rivalry series between the Rangers and Blue Jays — he didn’t make it out of the fourth inning after allowing seven runs (six earned) on six hits and three walks. Hamels only struck out one of the 20 batters he faced.
Because of that — and some stellar pitching from Blue Jays starter Marco Estrada — Toronto won Game 1 10-1 to take a 1-0 series lead.
For a pitcher with one of the best reputations in baseball, Hamels' poor performance was shocking, but to those who have watched the lefty over his last six starts, Thursday’s performance looked like more of the same.
Hamels had plenty to prove heading into his postseason. Since Aug. 30, Hamels has been hit hard — 44 percent of contact against him has been hard-hit and 40 percent has been medium — those are Mike Trout numbers, but for everyone Hamels has faced.
In those last six starts, Hamels has a 6.75 ERA, 1.72 WHIP, .370 batting average on balls in play against, a 4.62 FIP, and has averaged 4.50 walks per nine innings.
Those are worse than replacement-level numbers.
Having a pitcher amid a slump like that in a playoff rotation would be a problem for any team, but it particularly hurts the Rangers, who are paper-thin on starting pitching. At the moment, the Rangers have only one pitcher — Darvish — who they can count on to win a game. And if Darvish doesn’t beat 20-game winner and Cy Young Award candidate J.A. Happ in Game 2 Friday, the Rangers are toast.
Texas will trot out Colby Lewis (4.81 FIP) or Martin Perez (4.50 FIP) for Game 3, but those are pitchers you only want on the mound when you have a series lead.
Hamels might not even get a second chance to prove that he’s the second ace that the Rangers need to go deep into the playoffs.
One pitcher isn’t enough to win a playoff series, particularly a five-game series, and so long as Hamels continues to pitch the way he did Thursday and has for the last month-plus, the Rangers only have one pitcher.
