While covering the Trenton Thunder during last night’s opening game of the Eastern League’s Northern Division Championship, talk in the press box turned a favorite topic of mine - pitch counts. It came up because of the Yankees plan to put Joba Chamberlain back into the bullpen next season to limit his innings.

I got into a one on one discussion with a scribe who is located in the Philadelphia area. I showed him an article I wrote about the Phillie’s when Charlie Manuel pulled Cole Hamels last week after 7 innings when he was going very well against the Chicago Cubs.

You can read that article on this site.

I was informed that Hamels pulled himself out of that game telling Manuel he was through.

Word is that Hamels (but especially his agent John Boggs) does not want to go more than 105-110 pitches in a game this late in a season for fear of getting hurt before his big payday. Hamels will likely receive a long tearm deal from the Phillies sometime soon, but doesn’t want to jeopardize his chances of landing that big contract.

I want to apologize to Charlie Manuel for calling him out on that “move.” It was his desire to have Hamels go the 8th inning, but Hamels declined. Quotes after the game showed that Manuel backed up his pitcher (very admirable) by saying Hamels “was completely spent,” but Hamels had retired 8 of 9 before leaving, using up only 35 pitches for those 9 batters. Not exactly working hard.

Several times this season Hamels went over 120 pitches, with a high of 125 on July 3rd. But since then Hamels has gone over 110 pitches only once (111 on August 12th).

Hamels is earning $500,000 this season and the Phillies own his rights for the next 4 years, and he can not be a free agent until after the 2012 season. Hamels needs to forget about the big contract and take a page from the book of CC Sabathia. CC is pitching down the playoff stretch not worrying about injury but to win a championship. He is dominating the National League right now and because of this will likely earn a bigger contract this off season.

Hamels should worry more about winning games and being the ace than about future contracts. He will get his money. Phillies fans should be really happy to learn that their ace pitcher is worried less about winning than about money. I predicted after that Cubs games the Mets were going to win the NL East because of Manuel’s unwillingness to ride his young horse.

Little did I know the horse did not want to take another lap around the track.