Cole Hamels is Ours, And You Can't Have Him

Well, if you're a Phillies fan, at least.

I'll admit I didn't see the game, nor any others, since I spent most of today either in the 80-degree sunny Pittsburgh weather or inside buildings avoiding said sunny weather once it became overwhelming, but I've got Hamels on my fantasy team (whoever said that drafting cute lefties doesn't work is obviously WRONG), so when I first checked the lines I saw the 15 strikeouts and was like "Great, ESPN's all screwed up again," except IT WASN'T SCREWED UP. Old King Cole was a merry old soul indeed.

Phillies 4, Reds 1

This game seems to have had plenty of awesomeness in it:

1) Cole Hamels pitched a complete-game win, throwing 115 pitches, giving up exactly one run -- a home run to Jeff Conine, who's like four times his age -- and gave up 5 hits overall, two walks, and STRUCK OUT 15.
2) The Phillies turned a 5-4-3 triple play! WOW!
3) Chase Cameron Utley, aka "An ace homers cutely", hit a home run (and no doubt it was done in a cute manner). So did Aaron Rowand, whose name does not anagram conveniently.

Seriously, 15 strikeouts may very well end up being the top strikeout performance of the season. If you look back over the last few years, there's only a handful of games in the 14-16 range in general.

On the other hand, while looking up the ESPN game score for this one (an 86 -- tying Felix's Opening Day game score and 3 short of his one against the Sox), I noticed that while I was in the midst of travelling to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, Mark Buehrle was throwing a no-hitter. Crazy! Man, I go away from baseball for a few days and all hell breaks loose! :)