Pirates Ace Gerrit Cole On Big 7th Inning Outburst: "It Was Unbelievable"
PITTSBURGH (93-7 The FAN) - With their five-game winning streak on the line and a sweep against the Marlins in the balance, the Pirates sent out Gerrit Cole for the series finale and got seven strong innings from their staff ace.
Cole joined the Pirates Postgame Show with Dan Zangrilli and Kevin Orie following his performance in which he gave up only seven hits and two earned runs while striking out seven and talked about what it was like watching his team breakout in the bottom of the seventh to take the lead.
"It was unbelievable inning, everything with two outs," Cole said. "A complete team effort approach wise. Hitter to hitter passing the baton. It was real nice to see."
The only two runs Cole surrendered in the team's 5-2 victory both came from solo home runs and he talked about feeling confident about his approach despite that.
"We felt good," Cole said. "It was just a tight ballgame from the get go and we couldn't make many mistakes. Pretty efficient today getting ground balls. With another team that's aggressive like that, you're going to give up some hits early in the count, but if you locate and make your pitches early, you can get rewarded for it."
Click the link below to hear more from Cole as he talked more about pitching aggressively and how he's managing to pitch deeper into games this year than he has in the past:
