Cole Hamels made 31 starts last year in which he threw 213 innings, or 6.87 innings per start. Rotation-mates Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee each went more than seven innings a start — 7.30 innings per start for Halladay and 7.27 for Lee.

So, should we be worried that Hamels isn’t going as deep into games? Not so much.

First of all, Halladay and Lee are workhorses who were at the top of the innings pitched list in the NL in 2011. Halladay was second in the NL in innings pitched with 233 2/3 and Lee was fourth with 232 2/3. Hamels himself was tied for ninth with 216 innings.

The other issue is that Hamels is a whole lot younger than either Halladay or Lee.

Table below shows, for Halladay, Lee, Hamels and Oswalt, the number of starts each of the four pitchers got by age and the average number of innings they threw per start that year:

Hamels Hamels Lee Lee Halladay Halladay Oswalt Oswalt
Year GS IP/GS GS IP/GS GS IP/GS GS IP/G
21 2 7.00
22 23 5.75 18 5.80
23 28 6.55 2 5.17 13 4.67 20 6.38
24 33 6.89 9 5.81 16 6.44 34 6.82
25 32 6.05 33 5.42 34 7.04 21 6.06
26 33 6.32 32 6.31 36 7.39 35 6.74
27 31 6.87 33 6.08 21 6.33 35 6.90
28 16 6.08 19 7.46 32 6.86
29 31 7.20 32 6.88 32 6.61
30 34 6.81 31 7.27 32 6.52
31 28 7.58 33 7.38 30 6.04
32 32 7.27 32 7.47 32 6.58
33 33 7.60 23 6.04
34 32 7.30
Through age 27 180 6.44 125 5.93 140 6.57 145 6.65

Or, for those of you who prefer your data harder to understand, here’s a picture (points are plotted for years in which each of the pitchers started at least ten games):

During his age 27 season, Hamels went about 6.87 innings per start. That mark is higher than Halladay (6.33 over 21 starts at age 27) or Lee (6.08 over 33). It’s about the same but a little worse than Oswalt. In 2005, Oswalt made 35 starts for the Astros in which he threw 241 2/3 innings, which is about 6.91 innings per start.

I do want to acknowledge that the squiggly line graph is nearly incomprehensible. One thing I think it does illustrate, though, is that after their age 27 seasons, the innings pitched per start numbers for Halladay and Lee generally went up. Oswalt was a different story. He topped out in innings per start during his age 27 season and has been generally downwards since then.

The other thing is that Hamels has made a lot more starts through his age 27 season than the rest of the group has. Having just completed his age 27 season, he has 180 career starts. Through their age 27 seasons, Oswalt led the group of Halladay, Lee and Oswalt with 145. In terms of innings pitched per start through age 27, Hamels has thrown more innings per start than Lee, but a little bit less than Halladay or Oswalt.

The biggest point for the day, though, is that Hamels doesn’t have any problem with not throwing enough innings per start. He does throw fewer innings per start than Halladay or Lee, but so does pretty much everyone else in the world. In 2010, for example, Lee made 13 starts with the Mariners in which he threw 103 2/3 innings, which is a silly 7.97 innings per outing.

Phils beat Florida State 6-1 yesterday. Pete Orr made a couple of defensive miscues in the top of the seventh on a ball through his legs and a bobble of a mighta-been double-play as Florida State scored a run to tie the game a 1-1. Orr led off the bottom of the seventh with a double, though, and the Phils went on to score five times in the frame. Hector Luna hit a two-run shot in the rally. Hunter Pence doubled and walked in two plate appearances. Mayberry started at first and went 0-for-3 with five men left on base.

Austin Hyatt started for the Phils and struck out three in two perfect innings.

This says that Ryan Howard will be sidelined indefinitely after a procedure on Monday “to clean an infection from his surgical wound.” I’m not a medical expert or anything, but I think this might mean it’s okay to call it a setback now.

Erik Kratz says that Phillippe Aumont is a bulldog in this article. I don’t think he’s being literal. I think we would need to start to seriously consider the effectiveness of the scouting process if the fact that Aumont was a bulldog rather than a baseball player had somehow slipped through the cracks before trading for him.