Nothing changes for Hamels like his changeup

08-01-2007

By Tom Shanahan, San Diego Hall of Champions

The pitch Cole Hamels unleashes to baffle National League hitters is a one of the trickier changeups in baseball. What looks like a fastball actually arrives later than the batter expects as he swings and a misses.

Funny that a changeup would define the long and lean left-hander, one of the National League leaders in strikeouts and wins and an All-Star in his first full Major League season.

Because since the Philadelphia Phillies drafted Hamels in the first round with the 17th overall pick in 2002 out of Rancho Bernardo High, his career has been nothing but a straight-forward fastball.

He made his Major League debut by May 12, 2006, finished his rookie year with a 9-8 record and entered August with a 12-5 record while pushing the surging Phillies in range of the post-season.

“I think I’m in a better comfort zone this year,” Hamels said on a mid-July visit to Petco Park. “When you go out there and know you belong, it definitely eases your mind a bit; you’re not worried about the stresses and off-the-field events.”

Hamels was certainly feeling comfortable during his recent San Diego homecoming, although he followed the Padres in their days at Qualcomm Stadium. Hamels lost a 1-0 decision to the Padres and Chris Young.

"When you can come to a Park like this that's big, it eases your mind," he said. "Coming from Philadelphia, where every park we go to is bigger and you don't give up home runs, that can effect your game big-time. Here, you can take a step back and try and take care of business. And you can’t beat the good weather."

Even his recent marriage was straight forward. He introduced himself to Heidi Strobel -- a TV contestant on “Survivor: the Amazon” and Playboy model -- while still in the minor leagues.

As he tells the story, she was making an appearance in Clearwater, Fla., when he met her. He asked her out, but she said she had to travel to her hometown of Springfield, Mo., if he wanted to get to go on a date. He did, and they were married on Dec. 31, 2006, followed by a honeymoon in Africa.

Hamels had plenty of impressive moments on the field as a 9-8 rookie, but the difference this year has been consistency. He went 5-1 in May to improve to 7-2 when he was named a Breitbard Star of the Month.

“You need a year to figure things out,” he said. “You go to a new stadium every three or four days and you don’t know what to expect. Now I’m more acclimated to the traveling and everything else you go through in a full season that is part of the learning process. I’m trying to become a veteran.”

Hamels smiled as he said "veteran" as if he was putting quotations around the word in print. Maybe he’s been told 23-year-old pitchers aren’t supposed to be a veteran in only their second big-league season, but he’s not listening.

But he has absored some 40-something advice. What 40-plus veteran pitchers Greg Maddux and David Wells have been to Padres ace Jake Peavy, 44-year-old Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer has been to Hamels -- along with former Padres pitcher Adam Eaton, a seventh-year veteran, to a lesser extent.

“Those two guys know their stuff,” Hamels said. “They tell me stories about what it was like when they came up. I have a jump start on certain situations and don’t second-guess myself as much. I’ve been given the information, and I can anticipate what to expect.”

Hamels has put to use what he learned from others since his days at Rancho Bernardo playing for Sam Blalock and his sage assistants. But he says one of the most important lessons he learned from Blalock, who has turned out many draft picks and college scholarship players as San Diego’s winningest high school coach, was how to rely on yourself.

“I think they gave me structure,” Hamels said. “They taught me how to prepare for the game; how to take care of myself and how to compete. When you have a coach who is nice to you and never hard on you, you don’t know how to be hard on yourself.”

One of the common laments of managers and coaches in modern-day baseball with its rich salaries is some players are hard to reach to motivate.

“We had instilled in us that you are the one that is going to get yourself somewhere,” Hamels said. “They gave us the information, but we had to one to get out there and compete. I think I was able to get that (at Rancho Bernardo).”

Then Hamels smiled, similar to when he talked about being a veteran.

“And the competition was pretty good in San Diego, too,” he said. “You had to perform to play against San Diego talent. You look at guys like Adrian Gonzalez (Padres) from Eastlake, Eric Chavez (A’s) and Eric Munson (Astros) from Mt. Carmel and the Giles brother (Brian and Marcus, Padres) from Granite Hills. There is a never-ending list of San Diego guys that are going to retire with top numbers.”

And it appears we can add Cole Hamels.

Tom Shanahan can be contacted at 619-699-2334