Hamels’ shoulder injury

The Phillies announced yesterday that Cole Hamels will miss his next scheduled start with shoulder inflammation. Hamels himself does not consider it to be serious, though you always have to hold your breath about shoulder injuries. The Phillies were concerned about Hamels’ recent loss of velocity, so they decided to send him for an MRI. You can see on the chart below that in his last start, Hamels’ pitch speed was down by at least 3 mph for all four of his pitches (fastball, cutter, changeup, curveball):

The Phillies can hope Hamels’ self-diagnosis is on target and he’s back in the rotation next week. But if he’s out for longer, the Phillies can withstand the blow better than other teams, given the fact that they have Roy Halladay, Cliff Lee and Roy Oswalt in their rotation.