Philadelphia Phillies left hander Cole Hamels says he plans to add a fourth pitch to his repertoire in spring training next season.
This is news to OTR, as we are still waiting for him to add a third pitch. We are kidding….sort of.
Hamels is really a two-pitch pitcher. When he is locating his fastball and it’s crisp, his changeup is absolutely devastating. This season though, he hasn’t had the command of his fastball the way he’d like, and he’s been very inconsistent.
He has a curveball as a third pitch that he throws…sort of. It’s not an “out” pitch for him and it seems like he throws it a few times a game just to say he did.
So what about a fourth pitch?
“Putting another pitch in the back of the hitter’s mind can only help me,” Hamels said.
He’s thought about adding a cutter or a slider for a while and even experimented with the slider in August. He threw one in a game against Pittsburgh.
“It got hit, so I didn’t throw it again,” he said.
We’ll see what happens in spring training, when it’s a much better time to start tinkering with things like mechanics and new pitches. We are actually shocked he didn’t work on adding another pitch in this past spring training.
“We’d like to see him keep the curveball and add a more commandable breaking ball,” Dubee said.
Regardless, none of this is relevant to tonight’s Game 3 at home against the New York Yankees in the World Series. For now, he needs to get command of his fastball and let the changeup do its thing.
