35 Cole Hamels, SP

Recent struggles have some Fantasy owners thinking twice about running with Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels, as evidenced by his percentage started being 20 points lower than his percentage owned.

While taking a look at two-start pitchers for week eight on Fantasy Baseball Today, Al Melchior said he still considers Cole Hamels a must-start regardless of whether he’s a one-start or two-start. Hamels’ next two scheduled outings come against Miami on Monday and Washington on May 26.

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. 

Phillies starting pitcher Cole Hamels could not end his losing skid Wednesday against the Indians, dropping a third straight start and losing for the fourth time in five outings as Cleveland beat Philadelphia, 10-4. Hamels opened with two scoreless innings before the Indians scored five times over the next three innings.

Hamels, who was plagued by a high pitch count, gave up a solo home run to Mike Aviles in the fourth inning and a two-run homer to Nick Swisher in the fifth inning. Hamels (1-6) allowed five runs on six hits and two walks in five innings. He struck out four. The Phillies are 1-8 in his starts.

Hamels needed 91 pitches to get through four innings and reached 100 in the fifth.

"We drove his pitch count up early," Indians manager Terry Francona said. "We made him earn his outs and we scored early. It's great to work the count and have something to show for it."

The left-hander will be back on the hill Monday at Miami. Hamels is 0-1 with a 1.93 ERA in two starts against Miami this season.

Although he hasn't allowed more than two earned runs in four straight starts, Phillies starting pitcher Cole Hamels is 1-3 in that span. However, manager Charlie Manuel is quite confident the left-handed hurler is due for a hot streak.

"He's real close to getting on one of those runs, has had good stuff, but walked more than usual, matter of command," Manuel said during an interview on MLB Network Radio.

Phillies starting pitcher Cole Hamels struggled badly with his control for the second time in three starts Thursday. He walked five batters in six innings against the Diamondbacks.

Hamels lasted six innings and allowed just two runs in the outing, despite walking five batters and allowing six hits. He struck out just three batters, his second-lowest total of the season. Despite the quality start, Hamels earned his fifth loss of the season, as the Phillies managed just one run in a 2-1 loss.

Hamels had more walks than strikeouts in the outing, the second time he has done that in eight starts; he only did it three times from 2010-2012, a stretch of 95 starts. He has 11 walks in his last 20 innings.

Hamels is 1-5 with a 4.18 ERA. He has a career-worst 7.49 K/9 and 3.83 BB/9 in 51 2/3 innings. He will try to get back on track in his next start, scheduled for Wednesday against the Indians.