Cole Hamels

The Phillies are making calls to gauge trade interest in All-Star pitcher Cole Hamels, according to CBSSports.com baseball insider Jon Heyman. Sources told Heyman that the Phillies "recently began making calls" about Hamels. Ken Rosenthal, of Fox Sports, said on his Twitter account: "Can confirm that #Phillies are calling teams on Hamels, asking for massive haul. " Hamels, 27, will become a free agent after this season. He is 10-4 this season with a 3.08 earned run average.

The bad news about Cole Hamels' left shoulder was news to him. "I don't even know what it was about," the Phillies' pitcher said Monday night in his first interview since a report surfaced earlier this month that he experienced some shoulder discomfort during his offseason throwing program. Hamels, the best pitcher last season in a rotation that still has three legitimate aces, wasn't just playing dumb. He insisted there was no shoulder soreness, and that's great news for a team that will likely live or die in 2013 on the arms of Hamels, Roy Halladay, and Cliff Lee. "I've been healthy," Hamels said before he and his wife, Heidi, received the Humanitarian Award from the Philadelphia Sports Writers Association at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Cherry Hill.

This moment should have occurred four years ago. Cole Hamels was atop the baseball world, reigning MVP of the World Series, cover boy for Sports Illustrated, which trumpeted "The Fabulous New Life of Cole Hamels. " "Maybe it's as easy as it looks," smaller type below the headline proclaimed. Maybe it's appropriate that Hamels was forced to wait for his first opening day start until now. Maybe it's best Hamels learned the lesson of the 2009 spring, when he failed to adequately prepare and succumbed to a sore elbow.

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The new leader of the starting rotation did exactly what he was supposed to do in the Grapefruit League opener Saturday, but still the Phillies could not beat the Houston Astros. This we offer as proof that spring-training leadership week was blown way out of proportion. Or maybe Saturday's fall-from-ahead loss was just more evidence that regardless of how wretched the Astros become, the Phillies will always have a hard time beating them. The good news about that is the Astros have moved to the American League West, never to be seen again in Philadelphia as anything other than an interleague opponent.

In the opinion of Phillies pitching coach Rich Dubee , Cole Hamels is simply experiencing what many starting pitchers do at this time of the year - arm fatigue. "Right now, that's what we think it is," Dubee said Saturday. Following Friday's 4-2 loss to Washington, Hamels said that he had a difficult time getting loose, but that he was not in pain. The lefthander didn't appear to be concerned. Manager Charlie Manuel said Hamels had stiffness in his shoulder.

Cole Hamels emerged from the trainer's room after one of his rigorous workouts, with two glowing red rectangles on his lower back, the spots where heat had been applied to his body's Achilles' heel. For Phillies fans, those large welts might just as well have been boxes on a multiple-choice quiz: "Check the 'Yes' box if you think Cole Hamels will withstand an entire National League season. Check 'No' if you don't. " Hamels' fragility - he's missed time not only with ailments he's attributed to a degenerative disc, but with elbow and shoulder woes - is the only unanswered question about the stylish lefthander as the Phillies embark on a 2008 season heavy on optimism but light on pitching.

Cole Hamels had prepared himself for the opener of the postseason for the Phillies as any other game during the regular season, and that's the way it was for him on the mound when he shut down the Milwaukee Brewers on two hits over eight innings. As for the other contests against the Brewers being the same as the regular season, forget it. "It's different when you're not playing," Hamels said yesterday. "When you're sitting there seeing the crowd go nuts and you want to win so bad, you can't do anything about it. "I think it's the part when you're playing - it's the game, and you enjoy it so much.

In the last six months, Cole Hamels has won four postseason games and the most valuable player award in two series, chatted with David Letterman, appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated, spoken about education in Malawi, and began a transition from baseball phenom to mainstream celebrity. Hamels, 25, is scheduled to start today for the Phillies in an exhibition game against Canada's team in the World Baseball Classic, marking the end of a hectic, shortened off-season for the pitcher.

For the second time in three days, Cole Hamels found himself at Qualcomm Stadium watching the team that made him its first-round draft pick play the San Diego Padres. Yesterday's trip was a little different than the one he made Tuesday night, when the 18-year-old pitcher with the lively left arm was with his friends and bailed out after the 12th inning of a 16-inning marathon between the Padres and Phillies. This time, Hamels was in attendance as an official guest of the Phillies, who are still trying to get the kid from nearby Rancho Bernardo High School to agree to a signing bonus worth at least $2 million.

DENVER - The subject matter being studied under the microscope has changed over the years. Seldom have the up-close inspections affected Cole Hamels' on-field performance. Hamels zoomed through the farm system after the Phillies made him a first-round pick in 2002, proved he belonged in the big leagues as soon as he arrived, and was the best pitcher in the postseason when his team won the World Series in 2008. The only double bogey of Hamels' career was the 2009 season, and even Tiger Woods fails to make the cut sometimes.