Can you hear that?

The ominous silence, broken only by beeps? Like the radar screen for putting the unforeseen in focus just lit up?

Makes you turn and wonder: 

Is that Cole Hamels' shoulder tear-assing through the blue?

"That's the only thing that could torpedo this season: if one of their key starting pitchers goes down," said ESPN Baseball Insider Jayson Stark with Jon Marks and Dan Schwartzman on 97.5 The Fanatic (ESPN Radio Philadelphia) on Friday.

The overwhelming sentiment is that it's not, that Cole's dead arm diagnosis is but a blip. That comes from Stark's impression. Hamels already threw a bullpen session over the weekend, and isn't expected to miss more than one start (for now).

From Hamels' locker room conversations.

"The important thing is what he told his teammates," Stark said. "Cole is convinced this is nothing. Cole thinks he's going to be fine."

Thinks? Or hopes?

For all he is—at times complacent and eternally blasé—Hamels isn't a whiner. Isn't the type to speculate or sensationalize. Or dwell on anything other than the positives.

“It’s just one of those times in the year where you’re traveling and pitching a lot of innings, things kind of amount and you just have to get through it,” Hamels told Hardball Talk. “If you’re able to battle through it and things go well, you don’t notice it and you keep on moving.”

But dead arm—sandlot-speak for an overused shoulder—isn't something you can ignore away. It varies in seriousness, starting with mild tissue buildup and ending with a complete labrum tear. Reports have Cole somewhere in the middle—the stiffness that kept him from loosening up his shoulder last Saturday is an intermediate symptom—but who knows where he lies?

Whether he's closer to safety or catastrophe?

If all is well, if Hamels takes the hill against the Mets (August 22-24, after 9-to-12 days of rest) or Marlins (August 26-28, after 13-to-16) without a setback or disappointment, this could be as forgotten as the Phillies first-half offense.

But what if it doesn't?

What if it's only the first of the worst?

What if Hamels' velocity sags through season's end? If Todd Zolecki's observation—he notes that Cole's velocity has sunk in each of his last five starts—becomes his new norm? If the downswing since 2010 on his FanGraphs.com velocity chart never turns up? If 88.55 m.p.h. heat—some three ticks lower than his 91.1 MPH season average and where Hamels topped out last Saturday—is all he'lll ever cook with again?

What if one missed start multiplies like a gerbil? If Hamels spends his end-of-season stretch on the DL? If all that momentum—he'd gone four-straight allowing two runs or fewer (3-1, 1.78 ERA) before August 12—turned to mush?

What if that triggered a team-wide sputtering? If 13-5 in the Hunter Pence era soured in a world without Cole? If they lose their mystique? If Philly foes suddenly size them up as mortal?

What if Charlie Manuel wanted to flip to a six-man rotation? If the only card that could spare Roy Halladay (189.2 IP, most in National League) and Cliff Lee (179 IP, third-most) was suddenly pulled from the deck? If Halladay or Lee are too?

Then what?

Is there any doubting a detriment like losing stuff like Cole's? How your rotation all of a sudden doesn't? How 6-7 with a 3.51 ERA (Oswalt's numbers) from your No. 3 man seems that much less imposing than 13-7 and a 2.62 (Hamels')?

Cozily as you've warmed to Vance Worley (8-1, 2.76 ERA), do you trust him in decisive spots? You should've all along. But now you have to. Not just after what you've seen, a 5.14 August ERA, most of it a six-run shellacking against the Dodgers on August 10. Or even what you fear, iffy confidence and shaky stuff in a postseason spot.

That now, all of a sudden, is real.

And Roy Oswalt's (6-7, 3.51) eight clean innings with nine strikeouts was buoyant for his first stint off the DL. But it can't wipe memory of what put him there, or the pain of a finicky back. Future back pain is real(ly a potential problem).

Forget K-19: The Widowmaker. What could be coming feels like Game 6: The Heartbreaker all over again.