Advertisement

Pirates pre-game: Cole to start wild-card game

By Bill Brink 8 years ago

In the non-breaking-news category: Gerrit Cole will start the wild-card game agains the Cubs.

Read our full breaking news story here.

“It’s special,” Cole said. “I think I’ve said it all along as he continued to put me in big games. It’s vote of confidence, it’s trust, it’s acknowledgement for the hard work that you put in to put yourself in that position. At the same time, this is a team game. It’s not all one player. We have to go out and win the game. I just have to keep us in a stone’s throw, I guess.”

Cole has a 2.13 ERA in four starts against the Cubs this year and 32 strikeouts in 251/3 innings. He has a 2.88 ERA in nine career starts spanning 561/3 innings, with 69 strikeouts.

“I knew after the last start I needed to be preparing for seven days,” Cole said. “I started that process already. I had a pretty good feeling. We had already decided, we just hadn’t made it official yet. Just try to get prepared. We had a couple opportunities this year where we’ve had extra rest, and I thought we’ve used those to our advantage quite well.”