Hamels at his best in postseason

Oct 30, 2008 - 10:18 AM By Kevin Pedersen PA SportsTicker Staff Writer

Cole Hamels may not have been a household name before the postseason.

Now, the lefthander will not soon be forgotten in the memories of Philadelphia Phillies fans and the rest of the baseball world.

The 24-year-old finished the 2008 playoffs with a 4-0 record and a 1.80 ERA, earning World Series MVP honors on Wednesday as the Phillies won their first world championship since 1980, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays four games to one.

Hamels was also named National League Championship Series MVP, becoming the fifth player to win both awards and first since Livan Hernandez did it for the Florida Marlins in 1997.

"I'm definitely going to have to enjoy this moment, because there's a lot of times you don't have everything go your way," Hamels said. "I was just fortunate enough to be on the good end of these victories and winning a trophy.

"But truly it was the teammates behind me that really helped me through these times. They're the ones that scored the runs. They put up runs in the first inning and that makes my job easy, it really does."

Hamels finished his third campaign in the majors with a 14-10 record and 3.09 ERA, striking out 196 batters in 227 1/3 innings.

But it was not known whether he could carry a team. Hamels lost his only postseason start as the Phillies were swept by the Colorado Rockies in the divisional series in 2007.

The southpaw made a statement in his first playoff start of 2008 that he would be a different pitcher this time around.

The San Diego, California native threw eight scoreless innings, allowing two hits with nine strikeouts in Philadelphia's 3-1 Game One victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.

Hamels followed that with three straight starts of seven innings apiece, while allowing a combined five runs - recording the win in each outing.

After winning the first and fifth game of the NLCS against the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Phillies' ace won Game One of the World Series.

The lefthander would have had a great opportunity to win the clinching game if not for the weather that delayed the contest by 46 hours. Hamels allowed two runs in six innings and had thrown just 75 pitches and still would have earned the win if not for Rocco Baldelli's seventh-inning home run once the game was resumed.

For a franchise and a city starving for a championship, one could not have asked for much more.

"This is something that you have to live for," Hamels said. "Going out there, I knew I had a job to do and I had the support of these fans, I had my teammates behind me and all I had to really go do was just go throw a baseball as well as I knew how to."

Hamels may have just been known in the baseball world as a frontline starter with one of the best changeups in the business.

Now he will be remembered as a big-game pitcher, who at such a young age, led the losingest franchise in sports to a World Series title in what may have been the best postseason stretch a Phillies pitcher has ever had.

"I know people will look at me differently, expect probably more out of me," Hamels said. "But I truly know that all the hard work that I go out and I do, to come away with a World Series ring is more important to me than an MVP. I think winning the World Series is the far more greater accomplishment than anything I can do.

"Like (manager Charlie Manuel) said, I feel like a winner now."