Phillies manager Charlie Manuel told reporters before Wednesday's start that Cole Hamels was on the verge of a hot streak, but Hamels went out and allowed five runs in five innings of work to drop his record to 1-6.
Hamels is in the midst of a definite cold streak to open the season,. He has already matched his loss total from last season in just nine starts. His ugly record isn't all the result of bad luck and poor run support either. His 4.61 ERA is a career-worst. Hamels is struggling with his control or the first time in his career, walking 3.81 batters per nine innings, while only striking out 7.46 per nine.
At this point, there do not appear to be any physical reasons for Hamels' struggles. His average fastball velocity is sitting at 91.5 according to FanGraphs.com's PITCHf/x data, actually an improvement over the 2012 season, so it is not like we can point to some obvious mechanical flaw that is causing his pitches to lose their life. He is also throwing a similar proportion of his pitches inside the strike zone: 42.6 percent in 2013, 43.8 percent in 2012.
At least if he were struggling with his arm speed or showing a tendency away from pitching in the zone, we could try to diagnose what is wrong with Hamels. At this poin t, Fantasy owners simply have to hope that he is a few small corrections away from living up to his manager's still-lofty expectations.