Cool-hand Hamels joins elite company with Game 1 win

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The Phillies talk about how calm Cole Hamels is. They talk about how relaxed he is, even on the days he pitches.

"Cole never changes," Scott Eyre said Wednesday night.

And this month, when Hamels pitches for the Phillies, the result never changes.

Cole never loses.

He beat the Brewers. He beat the Dodgers twice. And in Game 1 of the World Series, he beat the Rays, too.

That's four starts for Hamels in this postseason, and four wins. That's three consecutive Game 1 starts, and three consecutive Game 1 wins.

In the 14 years since baseball adopted the three-tier playoff system, only three other pitchers have won Game 1 in each round. John Smoltz did it for the 1996 Braves, David Wells did it for the 1998 Yankees and Josh Beckett did it last year for the Red Sox.

Smoltz, Wells, Beckett and now Hamels.

Not bad company, although from what we know about Hamels, he probably expected it.

This is a guy so relaxed that his teammates say he's exactly the same on the days he pitches as on the days he's off. But this is a guy so confident that pitching coach Rich Dubee says Hamels thinks he's going to throw a no-hitter every time out.

"He really does," Dubee said after Hamels gave up five hits in seven innings in his 3-2 win over the Rays. "Probably last year, maybe a little this year, it got in his way at times, because he is such a perfectionist."

It didn't get in his way that much, because Hamels went 15-5 in 2007, in his first full big league season. And even though he lost his one playoff start, he only gave up three hits that day in a 4-2 Rockies win.

Phillies starter Cole Hamels becomes just the fourth pitcher to win Game 1 in each round of the playoffs. (Getty Images)

Hamels was 14-10 this year, but the Phillies were shut out in three of his losses, and held to three runs or fewer in five of the other seven.

They're not exactly scoring a ton of runs for him this month, either. He won 3-2 over the Brewers in Game 1 of the Division Series, and 3-2 over the Dodgers in Game 1 of the NLCS. He won 3-2 again on Wednesday, winning on a night when the Phillies went an amazing 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position.

"We did not," Shane Victorino protested, when the stat came up after the game. "We weren't 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position."

Yes, you were.

"We scored," Victorino argued.

Yes, they scored. They scored on a two-run Chase Utley home run after a one-out Scott Kazmir walk in the first, and they scored with a pair of groundouts after Victorino and Pedro Feliz began the fourth inning with singles.

But when the Phillies had the bases loaded with one out in the second, they didn't score. When they had a runner on third with one out in the third, they didn't score. Same when they had a runner on third with one out in the seventh, and also in the ninth.

And when it was suggested to Jimmy Rollins that this wasn't really a perfect formula for winning, Rollins quickly agreed.

"You wouldn't do it that way, huh?" Rollins said. "But it works. That's been our recipe, one big hit. Tomorrow, I'm sure we can't go 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position and win 3-2."

Rollins didn't mean it this way, but one reason they can't count on doing that again in Game 2 is that they won't have Hamels on the mound. Brett Myers is perfectly capable of pitching a good game, but the game plan for a Phillies championship always began with a Hamels Game 1 win.

Not that Hamels minds that kind of pressure.

Remember, this is a guy who reacted to a June win over the Red Sox by saying it felt like a possible World Series preview, and also by saying, "I think we can compete with them any day of the week."

This is a guy who is only 24 years old, but already believes he should and can be the ace of a championship team.

"He knows he's got stardom written all over him," Dubee said. "And he thrives being in those positions."

You wonder where that comes from. You wonder how a guy this young can walk into a clubhouse before Game 1 of the World Series and convince his teammates that he's as relaxed as could be -- and also as confident of winning as could be.

"It comes with that makeup," Dubee said. "It comes with that belief that he's better than hitters, that he's going to get hitters out."

He's done it now, for four consecutive postseason starts. He's done it now in the World Series. He's given the Phillies the Game 1 they hoped for, the Game 1 they needed.

The Phils realize that to win the World Series, they'll need more. They're well aware that the Red Sox won Game 1 of the ALCS at Tropicana Field, behind another masterful pitching performance, from Daisuke Matsuzaka.

They're aware that the 0-for-13 with runners in scoring position thing could prove to be a problem, should it continue. They're also aware that in Wednesday night's win, Ryan Howard was 0-for-4 with three strikeouts and four runners left on base, Rollins was 0-for-5 and Pat Burrell was 0-for-3.

It was Rollins, in fact, who noticed that those three usually-big hitters had lockers right next to each other in the visitors' clubhouse at Tropicana Field.

"That's what it is," Rollins said with a smile. "It's that no-hit syndrome."

The Phillies got away with it in Game 1, because of that other syndrome that has been part of their postseason.

Call it the Cole-never-loses syndrome.

The Phillies can only hope that it's catching, too.