Cole Hamels breathing new life into Cubs rotation in career renaissance

Bob Nightengale | USA TODAY

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CHICAGO – Cole Hamels reached down, stuffed a few shirts, shorts, socks and underwear into his duffel bag and sheepishly shrugged his shoulders.

“Sorry, had to bring my laundry in,’’ he said.

Hamels has been hop-scotching all over Chicago the past month, staying in different places since being traded to the Cubs. With no washer and dryer of his own, he brought his dirty laundry to Wrigley Field.

The way Hamels has been pitching, Chicago politicians may give him a key to the city and his own washer-dryer unit.

Hamels, 34, is enjoying one of the greatest in-season renaissances in baseball history, looking like the young pitcher who was the 2008 World Series MVP instead of the old dude fighting for survival with the Texas Rangers before a July 31 nonwaiver trade deadline deal sent him north.

There hasn’t been a pitcher in nearly a century who has been traded during the season and dominated like Hamels. He is the first pitcher since Lee Meadows in 1919 to yield one or no runs in each of his first five starts with his new team. Hamels, scheduled to start Tuesday against the New York Mets and Cy Young Award candidate Jacob deGrom, is 4-0 with a 0.79 ERA. He hurled the first complete game by a Cubs pitcher this season in his last outing, against the Cincinnati Reds.

It’s hard to believe this is the same guy who was pitching so poorly that not even Hamels believed anyone would want him. He was 5-9 with a 4.72 ERA with the Rangers and getting worse, yielding a 10.23 ERA in his last five starts. He had given up 23 home runs, which still is the sixth-most in the American League. He has yet to cough up a homer to the 127 batters he has faced since joining the Cubs.

“I was brutal,’’ Hamels told USA TODAY Sports. “Absolutely brutal. I was fighting a lot of mechanical issues, just opening up, not using my lower half and pulling my pitches. ... I started relying on cutters because that was the one thing that was missing bats. So you tend to go into protect mode when you get behind in the count, and I was going more protective mode trying to get more swings and misses.’’

The Cubs sent special assistant Dave Klipstein to Texas to follow Hamels, and his reports informed team President Theo Epstein and general manager Jed Hoyer that he was improving and certainly could benefit a shaky rotation. The Cubs foresaw a veteran who could be a front-line starter. They also reminded themselves what a change of scenery did a year ago for Justin Verlander, when he was traded from the Detroit Tigers to the Houston Astros, and believed the same could happen for Hamels.

“I know it’s tough when you’re on a team that’s pretty much mathematically out of it, to have the same intensity as being on a winning team,” Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo said. “I can say that because I’ve been on both sides.’’

The Cubs not only were taking Hamels out of the powerful AL but also getting him out of Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas, where he was yielding a 6.41 ERA with 16 homers in 59 innings compared to a 2.93 ERA on the road.

“I remember talking to Theo about that when we made the deal,’’ Cubs ace Jon Lester said. “Texas is such a hard place to pitch, it’s hotter than two hells there, and it’s such a hitter’s ballpark. Theo told me, ‘Let’s just get him out of there, bring him to a new place, to a fun atmosphere where you’re winning and see what happens. Sometimes, you just need a change.’ ’’

Said Hamels: “When there’s more at stake, you bring out the big guns. You dig down deep to who you are. You don’t hold anything back and you just let it fly. Who you are finally gets exposed out there to the public eye and to your teammates.’’

Hamels, a San Diego native with Hollywood looks who wore shorts and sandals to Wrigley last weekend, is as fierce a competitor that ever has walked through those doors.

“Just watching him go about his work, his preparation, the stuff he does in the weight room,’’ 2016 National League MVP Kris Bryant said. “My gosh, it inspires me to do what he’s doing. He’s had a great career, he has nothing left to prove, and he still wants more. It’s awesome having him here.’’

Hamels, who won a World Series with the Philadelphia Phillies and back-to-back AL West titles with the Rangers, says he was hoping to have the opportunity to win again but never requested a trade or even hinted he wanted to leave.

“The way I was pitching,’’ Hamels said, “being traded was the last thing on my mind. I figured, ‘Oh well, I’ll be here the rest of the year, and we’ll figure it out in free agency.’ ’’

The Cubs were able to procure Hamels and ease the sting caused when former Rangers teammate Yu Darvish, who signed a six-year, $126 million contract this winter with the Cubs, won one game before injury sidelined him for the year.

Hamels, who signed a six-year, $144 million contract extension in 2012 with the Phillies, certainly understands those demands and the pressure of living up to a lucrative deal. Yet instead of considering it an albatross, he embraced the anxiety, pitching at least 200 innings in seven consecutive seasons until last year.

“That’s what always propelled me. You’re surrounded watching guys as they age and have people say nobody ever lives up to their contract. I always said, ‘I want to be that guy who actually lived up to the contract.’ ’’

He’s certainly living up to the trade, and 10 years after winning his first World Series, he’s got a chance to wear another ring

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