In ref with Hammel, players go through funks. It happens. If anything his first half should encourage you that there is more there. This isn't a 5 ERA guy who can't pitch better. As for him not being good enough or whatever, pretty sure I recall chibears55 suggesting the offseason would be a failure if they didn't sign Lester and someone else of that sort of caliber as a pitcher. So, it doesn't really surprise me he's down on Hammel as the #3. Either way, whether he realizes it or not I still go back to my point he shouldn't be mad at Hammel. Hammel comparative to other #4/5 starters has been better than expected and realistically that's how you should view him. The cubs just flat out don't have a #3 at the moment. It's honestly not that hard to figure out what happened. Hammel is giving up more HRs and walking more batters in the 2nd half. That's a way to get ERs.
To illustrate my point here... the pirates are a good team. Think everyone can agree on that. Their #4 and #5 starters are Charlie Morton with a 4.02 ERA and Jeff Locke with a 4.43 ERA. So to sit here and blast Hammel with a 3.73 ERA on the season is pretty silly to me. Also for what it's worth, James Shields who they tried to sign presumably as that #3 type has a 3.80 ERA. Ultimately you can't get every thing you want in one offseason that's why building a team takes time to get the right players. And I still stand by the fact that if Hammel doesn't have a 2.86 first half ERA the cubs might not even be the #2 wild card. And as for that 2nd half ERA it's 53 IP in 11 starts 4 of which came vs @STL, @PIT, @LAD, and SFG. Not exactly "easy" opponents. Also, if I'm not mistaken he's not been pitching 100%. IIRC, they were able to keep him off the DL by limiting his innings some but clearly that can't have helped his numbers pitching some what hurt.
