NEW YORK – Gerrit Cole’s season after his start on May 17th looked pretty standard. He had a 2.84 ERA and a 3.62 xFIP, with a slightly high HR/FB ratio of 12.5%. Fast-forward three starts later, and Cole is sitting with a 4.27 ERA, a 3.89 xFIP, and a 19.7% HR/FB ratio.
Cole has given up eight home runs in the last three starts, after giving up seven in his first nine starts. The alarming amount of home runs — continuing last night with three home runs allowed — has many wondering what is going on.
After the game last night, Cole and Clint Hurdle were pretty straight forward about what is going on lately.
“I think they’re bad located pitches,” Hurdle said after last night’s start. “I think the conditions played to some degree. Some of those balls were hit really well. It’s one of the lulls he’s in right now. We’ll help him figure it out and we’ll move on.”
Cole didn’t go into much detail, but echoed the same thoughts about his performance right now.
“I’m for sure getting punished, and I’m for sure flat and not throwing quality strikes,” Cole said.
There’s only so much you can draw from a three game sample size, and most of it will just confirm that Cole is struggling, giving up home runs, flattening out his pitches, missing his spots, and anything else that he and Hurdle talked about last night.
The big question is whether Cole will continue these issues moving forward. Hurdle didn’t want to break down what was the cause of the recent struggles, chalking it up to a bad stretch.
“I’m not going to overcook this right now. This is a good pitcher in a tough time,” Hurdle said. “This is the big leagues, and I think people lose sight of that until somebody who has done some good things runs into a tough time, and everyone wants to throw their hands up and say what’s wrong? Hitters are hot, he’s not executing pitches, and he’s paying for it. That’s pretty simplistic. It’s probably got the most truth to it than anything else we can talk about.”
I think there’s some truth to what Hurdle said. If another pitcher went through a stretch like this, or if Cole went through a stretch like this during a season where nothing was working except the rotation, then it might not get as much attention.
At the same time, you can’t chalk things up to just being a bad stretch, because you could be ignoring some serious problems that could continue the stretch for longer than three games. I don’t think we’re there yet where there should be a long-term concern, but I do think we’re at the point where one more start like this from Cole would lead to a serious look at what is happening and whether there are any long-term concerns here.
Josh Bell Becoming a Nine Inning Player?
Last night, Clint Hurdle made a comment about Josh Bell making a few nice defensive plays, in addition to his strong night on offense. The thing about those plays is that a few of them came late in the game, when Bell would normally be replaced with a stronger defender. But Bell played a complete game, leading me to ask Hurdle today if his defense was getting to the point where he didn’t need a replacement.
“We’re in that progression. We’re in that lane right now,” Hurdle said. “There’s a lot of numbers you can grab. I had someone grab one and say he’s a plus-3 in Defensive Runs Saved. I said ‘That’s great, have you watched every pitch, have you watched every game he’s played?’ I’ve watched every pitch. I’ve watched every game that he’s played. I see him as improving. I also know that we have two other guys who are better defensively across the board with experience. So it’s a combination of the two, how you push it, when you add on to it.”
Bell has shown some positive signs, both on the field and in the stat line. His DRS is at 3 right now, which is an improvement over his -3 DRS last year in 150 innings. His UZR/150 is -6, which is a massive improvement over his -32.8 last year. But Bell still shows some concerns on the field, and defensive stats shouldn’t be treated as gospel when they come with a low sample size. For now, the best that can be said is that Bell is showing some encouraging progression with his defense. As for playing more complete games, he could see that trend going forward.
“We believe that we are going to continue to take those steps along the line to continue getting him opportunities to buy more time up there,” Hurdle said.
Taillon Has Another Rehab Outing
Jameson Taillon had his second rehab start last night in Indianapolis. For a full report on the start, check out Brian Peloza’s article from today. Hurdle noted that “it was a very, very good outing” and relayed a lot of notes from Scott Mitchell and Stan Kyles, which were also featured in Brian’s article. The highlights were that the curveball was a plus offering, the changeup was much improved, and the two-seam had bite, or “had teeth” as Mitchell and Kyles reported.
Taillon threw 15 of 19 first pitch strikes, and retired six guys on three pitches or less, showing some good efficiency.
The next step for Taillon will be a rehab start with Indianapolis on June 7th, when he will throw 85-90 pitches. That would put him on pace to return to Pittsburgh on June 12th, although no announcement on his return has been made.
