The focus has all been on the other guy, all about what Jake Arrieta has done and how unfair it is that the Pittsburgh Pirates‘ 98-win season now hinges on finding a way around him in the National League Wild Card Game.
But what about Gerrit Cole?
Arrieta was historically great for the Chicago Cubs in the second half of the season, and he will finish no lower than third in one of the most interesting Cy Young races ever (he could win). Fine, but it won’t surprise anyone if Cole finishes fourth.
Arrieta can look unhittable at times, with his 94 mph fastball and hard slider. Fine, but Cole throws even harder—his average fastball velocity of 95.5 was a close third among major league starters, just behind the Angels‘ Garrett Richards and the Royals‘ Yordano Ventura, according to FanGraphs—and when he’s on his game, he can make major league hitters look like a bunch of kids in Double-A.
“This might be a 1-0 game with no balls hit hard,” said one rival scout who has watched both pitchers closely. “I really don’t think this is a foregone conclusion. There’s probably 25 batters between the two teams that aren’t feeling good.”
Arrieta has become exactly what the Baltimore Orioles hoped he would be (and what he never was for them). Cole is exactly what the Pirates expected when they made him the top overall draft pick out of UCLA in 2011.
Cole and Cleveland Indians starter Trevor Bauer pitched on the same staff at UCLA, and there were those that spring who thought Bauer would be the better choice—he went third overall to the Arizona Diamondbacks. Pirates scouting director Greg Smith knew better.
Smith has a pretty nice history for drafting hard-throwing starters at the top of the first round, having chosen Justin Verlander for the Detroit Tigers in 2004. Like Verlander, Cole wasn’t close to a finished product in college, but he still moved fast after signing.
“There’s some roughness around the edges, and I like that,” Smith told me in a spring 2013 Cole story for CBSSports.com. “Because it means there’s more in there.”
Smith said that in February. Six months later, the then-23-year-old Cole was the Pirates’ choice to start the decisive Game 5 in their division series against the St. Louis Cardinals. He pitched well that night, allowing two runs on three hits in five innings, but Adam Wainwright was even better in a 6-1 Cardinals win.
Perhaps the same thing happens Wednesday against Arrieta. But maybe with two full seasons of major league experience behind him, Cole will be even better prepared for a winner-take-all game than he was then.
At a press conference Tuesday in Pittsburgh, Cole looked back on the game against the Cardinals and said the pressure doesn’t bother him.
“I mean, you get into a situation where your back’s up against the wall and you don’t have any option but to go out swinging,” he said. “So you might as well go for it. Treat it like any other game, and hopefully put yourself in a position to prepare for this opportunity. And I think I have.”
The numbers show he’s a better pitcher than he was two years ago, or even last year, when he watched from the dugout as San Francisco‘s Madison Bumgarner threw a shutout to beat Edinson Volquez in the Wild Card Game. Cole’s ERA is 2.60, the best of his career, and while his strikeout percentage basically stayed the same (8.7 per nine innings), his walk rate fell from 2.6 per nine innings a year ago to 1.9 this season.
“He’s more of a complete pitcher now,” said another rival scout who has followed Cole’s career. “He can still go get 99 [mph] when he wants it. But he’s a much smarter pitcher now.”
He was efficient enough to top the 200-inning mark for the first time, and he was consistent enough for the Pirates to go 23-9 in his 32 starts. He learned he didn’t need to throw his hardest pitches in the first inning, that he would be even better if he could go to another gear later on.
He grew as a pitcher, but he also grew mentally and emotionally. Tuesday in Pittsburgh, Pirates manager Clint Hurdle spoke about how Cole has experienced on-field injuries as well as an off-field engagement.
“So many cool things going on in his life, and his ability to compartmentalize them personally and professionally,” Hurdle said. “He respects everything about the game, and he fears absolutely nothing about the game. That’s a wonderful place to be.”
The Wild Card Game is a wonderful place for the Pirates to be, although one of these years they’d love to avoid it and go straight to the NLDS. The danger is you can run into an unbeatable pitcher, the way they did last year with Bumgarner.
And maybe there will be an unbeatable pitcher on the mound Wednesday, too. Maybe it will be Gerrit Cole.
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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