Gerrit Cole continues to work his way back to a spot in the Pirates starting rotation after a solid rehab start in Indianapolis on Sunday.
“It was good work [Sunday],” said Cole. “It was efficient. Good location of all four pitches and it was a nice outing.”
Cole pitched six shutout innings in his Sunday rehab start allowing one hit while striking out three. It was a welcome sight after going through a “mechanical” rehab outing in which he allowed five runs on 10 hits in 4 1/3 innings. Management wanted Cole to work on his throwing mechanics after saying he felt “brutal” the day after his first rehab start.
“I hadn’t pitched in a game in a while and coming out there for the first outing, I was just sore all over,” said Cole. “A few weeks off and a sim game and then a full five innings. I just think my body responded pretty much how you would expect.”
It was a start in which Cole was able to get back to basics with his arm slot and pitch location without having to worry about his stats for one outing which lead to the high hit and run totals.
“I was just trying to stay in a consistent arm slot,” said Cole. “Not trying to do too much with pitches. Just really staying disciplined through my delivery. I think it just needed to be cleaned up. Coming back, there’s a lot of things on your mind in terms of mechanically and they just wanted to get a couple of things nailed down.”
Manager Clint Hurdle also sees improvement from Cole’s first two rehab starts and is happy with the adjustments he has made, but there remains some improvement that he would like to see before making a final decision on placing him back in the rotation.
“He was able to maintain his delivery, maintain the slot, compete, make pitches, sharpness of pitches, command,” said Hurdle. “All the things we wanted to show up, it showed up. The number of pitches (74) is something we need to talk about, but it was a real good step piggybacking off the one were it was a workout and a gear down time. This time, added the conviction and the competition and I think the command part with the breaking ball, the changeup, the fastball, so a real good step for him.”
Cole is with the team now, but will travel to Louisville to make one final start with Indianapolis where he will hopefully go past the pitch limit he reached in his previous start.
“We are going to have Gerrit go back out and have another rehab start. He’ll travel with us to Detroit then leave for Indy on the 16th (Saturday) and we’d like to see if he can take it out there and add the number of ups. He had six last time and add to the volume of pitches which was 74 last time.”
If all goes well, we may see Gerrit Cole in the rotation by the end of the month for the final stretch run.
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(Photo Credit: Bill Gentry)
