Gerrit Cole was not all smiles in the dugout.
The Pittsburgh Pirate ace rarely shows emotion on the mound, and that didn’t change when he exited the field at Busch Stadium after the seventh inning Sunday night. But manager Clint Hurdle and Cole’s teammates couldn’t stop high-fiving the young pitcher.
High-fives in the dugout usually signal that a pitcher is done for the game, and Cole earned every hand slap after he exited a game where he blanked the St. Louis Cardinals through seven innings en route to his 16th win of the season.
His last pitch of the game was an 83-MPH curveball that dropped out of the strike zone against Jon Jay in an 0-2 count that needed to be blocked by the catcher. Jay didn’t stand a chance, and whiffed at the pitch to give Cole his seventh strikeout of the night. It was a strong end to a strong night.
Cole didn’t throw to his “personal catcher” Sunday in St. Louis.
It didn’t matter.
Francisco Cervelli was behind the backstop instead of Cole’s usual go-to guy Chris Stewart, and Cole still threw a gem against the Cardinals – seven innings, seven strikeouts, two hits allowed and a goose egg on the Cardinals’ half of the scoreboard.
A pitcher having a personal catcher is nothing new in baseball. Tim Wakefield had Doug Mirabelli. Bob Uecker caught for Phil Niekro. Even A.J. Burnett used Rod Barajas for the Pirates in 2012. And Cole has Stewart.
Cole is likely to get the ball in the Wild Card playoff game next month, and will probably face Jake Arrieta of the Chicago Cubs in that game.
But in a one game, winner-take-all playoff game should a pitcher use their personal catcher? Or should the team go with the best catcher?
Few would question the notion that Cervelli is the best catcher on the Pirates. He is second on the club in batting average, hitting .300, and has delivered in big situations numerous times this season. He will not be sporting a gold plated square in the top half of his catcher’s plate that Gold Glove winners receive any time soon, but Cervelli can still hold his own defensively.
Cervelli has only committed five errors all season, but his pitch framing has been second to none. According to Statcorner, no one in baseball has done better at pitch framing than Cervelli, and no one has a higher oStr% (the amount of balls caught outside the strike zone that are called for strikes) in the majors. The big weakness for Cervelli is throwing out runners, as he has only been successful 21.6 percent at preventing stolen bases.
But Stewart has arguably been worse behind the dish. He has committed seven errors in a whopping 524 less chances than Cervelli, while allowing runners to steal base around the same rate. He still has framed a positive numbers of pitches that were called a strike instead of ball, but not as well as Cervelli has.
So by the numbers, Cervelli appears to be the obvious choice to start in a one-game playoff.
But for most of the season, Cole relied on Stewart to catch games for him. Throwing to Stewart is what made Cole an All-Star and one of the best pitchers in the majors, so should that battery be messed in the biggest game of the year?
Well, recent history is starting to show that Cole may not need a personal catcher to be effective.
Since the start of August, Cole has pitched to Cervelli five times: Three of the games have not gone well for the Cole. In the three starts – one at St. Louis, one at Milwaukee and one against the Diamondbacks – Cole is 0-3 and gave up 12 runs in 16 innings while giving up 24 hits.
So there have some growing pains when Cole and Cervelli take the field together, but there is reason for optimism: Two of Cole’s last three starts with Cervelli have been gems. Against the Marlins and again in St. Louis, Cole has combined to go 2-0 and only gave up one run and seven hits in 14.1 innings. His start in Milwaukee in which he gave up a career high in runs while pitching a career low in innings is sandwiched between these two games; but the Pirates and Brewers seem to defy baseball logic when they meet at Miller Park, so it would be fair to take that result with a grain of salt.
Maybe Cole and Cervelli are finally getting chemistry together, but more time could be needed to determine that.
The important thing right now is that Cole bounced back from his sub par start in St. Louis on Aug. 12 – which was also his first start with Cervelli since the All-Star break – and looked like the dominant pitcher Pirate fans saw earlier in the year. If nothing else, it is a good example of Cole stifling the same opponent that hit him hard less than a month ago, and giving hope that becoming more comfortable with Cervelli not only helped Cole on Sunday night, but will help fuel him the rest of the season.
