Phillies starting pitcher Cole Hamels scratched due to illness, Tyler Cloyd to make debut
Tyler Cloyd, named the International League's best pitcher a day ago, will make his major-league debut Wednesday only because of an illness to Cole Hamels.
Phillies starting pitcher Cole Hamels scratched due to illness, Tyler Cloyd to make debut
Matt Gelb, Inquirer Staff Writer
Tyler Cloyd, named the International League's best pitcher a day ago, will make his major-league debut Wednesday only because of an illness to Cole Hamels.
The Phillies announced Hamels will not start as scheduled because of a gastrointestinal illness. Replacing him is Cloyd, who was slated to pitch at triple-A Lehigh Valley. Instead, he will face the New York Mets.
Cloyd, 12-1 with a 2.35 ERA, has become a cause celebre for a fan base craving any sort of drama in the final weeks of a lost season. While posting gaudy numbers in the minors, his rise has been met with skepticism by many scouts because Cloyd rarely throws harder than 90 m.p.h.
Cloyd's strikeout numbers have dropped considerably in 2012 even as his success multiplies. That suggests a great deal of luck. The theory will be tested at Citizens Bank Park on Wednesday.
An 18th-round pick in 2008, Cloyd was hardly on the radar screen entering the season. The 25-year-old righty was supposed to pitch for double-A Reading but started opening day for Lehigh Valley because of a last-minute suspension to another pitcher.
All he did was toss six no-hit innings with eight strikeouts.
It was the beginning of a charmed season for Cloyd, who finally has a chance to prove his doubters wrong.
Have a question? Send it to Matt Gelb's Mailbag.
Stat geeks need to stop insulting professional athletes with garbage like this: "That suggests a great deal of luck." The chance of a hit on a ball put in play is not equal for all players (i.e., the "luck" theory floated by stat geeks). You just have to flip the equation around to see the glaring and fatal flaw in that theory. If every pitcher has the same chance of giving up hits on batted balls, then that means every hitter has the same chance of getting hits on batted balls. So Michael Martinez has the same chance of getting hits that Pujols does when they both put a ball in play? Yeahhhhh right. Guys like Pujols, Bonds, Wade Boggs, Mattingly, Kirby Puckett, etc. going all the way back to Ty Cobb would just be lucky, average players instead of consistently being at the top in batting categories year after year.— JimG- "that suggests a great deal of luck" might be the silliest reasoning a professional MLB beat writer can come up with...Luck is when screamming line drives are speared, and tape measure shots wrap around the foul pole..Cloyd has started 26 games this year on 2 levels...going 15-1 with a 2.26 era, holding oppposing batters to a .214 BA...All he can do is pitch to the batters, and "pitch" is the key word here...BTW Matt, it was six PERFECT INNINGS to start out LV's season opener....Good luck to an overachiever...bout time. — bearsfriend
- Remember Randy Jones, Matt? Probably not. He struck out less than 3.5 batters per 9 innings. In the few years he was healthy, rather than lucky - I would argue, he was one of the best pitchers in the NL. This is not to suggest Cloyd is anything but lucky, but strikeouts alone only tell one story.— frankenslade
- The strikeout is one of the most overrated stats in baseball. Nolan Ryan, for all of his 5,000 plus strikeouts, was barely a .500 pitcher with a dismal postseason record.
- 90 mph is faster than any pitch Jamie Moyer ever threw and he had a long career. Next, we need Ruf. He's what, 22? Washington started Harper at age 19. Let's see what he has.— 1republican
- So, chuckw, Howard would have been on pace for 32 HR's and 104 RBI's. Considering he had no offseason prep and no spring training, I will bet you even money his numbers excede that next year if he plays 150 games. And the 230 SO pace is not far from his seasonal averages that I bet strikeouts would come down to their normal 150-200 a year.— Master Dreamz
- JimG, to be fair to stat geeks, indicators of good and bad luck (like fielding independent pitching and batting average on balls in play) are normally based on comparisons to a player's larger body of work. For example, Cole Hamels FIP was identical between 2008 and 2009. However his BABIP was much lower than his average (.280) in 2008 at .259 and much higher in 2009 at .317, the numbers indicate that Hamels' effort was similar across seasons, but he had good luck in 2008 and bad luck in 2009. Not sure I see any fatal flaws in that reasoning.— jtj10
- "That suggests a great deal of luck."
Maybe some luck is in order.— Cazptain Philadelphia - I guess cole-SLAW doesn't have the stomach for it...— toiletofphilly
- should do fine as long as Dubee leaves him alone.— rtiannelli
- Cole probably went out with Jimmy for an Ugandan dinner.— OldCityJoe
- Hey, we all asked for new faces, and were seeing them. I know they arrived a little too late, but it is what it is and lets not start complaining when it doesnt work out. We know were out of it, so why not bring up some more and lets see what they are made of, wont hurt a bit to this team.
— huntnmike3666 - Cole hungover from his charity event at the Crystal Tea Room last night?— SteveWis
- As with anybody coming into the major leagues, the chances that he will succeed are not very good. BUT I do NOT understand people who rule out his chances because his fastball doesn't top 90. Doesn't anybody remember a guy named Greg Maddux? If this guy is half the pitcher Maddux was, he'll be the best pitcher on the team.— altoonaaslan
- Just a few days ago after a Braves-Giants game, Tim Hudson was saying that Lincecum needs to start looking for fewer strikeouts, and that he tells all the young Braves pitchers an out is an out.— The K Man
