I think that Gerrit Cole broke the PitchFX pitch classification system tonight. I mean, seriously, what do you even do with this? According to the pitch classification, Cole threw 90% fastballs with maybe a handful or two of sliders mixed it. From what I could tell and from the best guesses of everyone watching the game and talking about it online, Cole threw a four-seam fastball, a two-seam fastball, a changeup, a curveball, and the nasty low-90s slider that's been missing from his repertoire thus far in his big league career. He threw 88 pitches and got 10 swinging strikes tonight, racking up five strikeouts in 6 1/3 innings after only striking out three total over 12 innings in his first two big league starts. He made Mike Trout and Albert Pujols both look silly before Pujols brought the party to a halt with a solo homer in the seventh inning.
Cole had plenty of help in this one, too. Pedro Alvarez and Jordy Mercer both homered in the second inning to give the Pirates a 3-0 lead, then Starling Marte tripled home a fourth run in the fourth inning. It created a big enough cushion that there was no reason for panic when Cole gave up his first home run and first walk in back-to-back fashion in the seventh inning, even if Cole had to come out of the game after two more hard-hit balls after that.
With the win, the Pirates matched their season high of 14 games over .500. Couple that with losses by the Reds and Braves, and the Pittsburgh Pirates have the second best record in all of baseball on June 22nd.
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