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Signs Seem Positive After Gerrit Cole’s Rehab Outing

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INDIANAPOLIS — Gerrit Cole accomplished everything that he wanted in his rehab outing with Triple-A Indianapolis on Tuesday: he threw a lot of fastballs, stayed within his delivery, and worked efficient innings to reach his desired pitch count.

In his rehab outing against Louisville on Tuesday, Cole allowed two hits and no runs in three innings of work, striking out six and walking none. He threw 32 of his 48 pitches for a strike.

Everything seemed to go well for Cole, but he said he anticipates another rehab outing in order to build himself up before he rejoins the Pirates. Cole had not pitched in a game since suffering a right triceps strain against St. Louis on June 10.

“The main goal here is to get built back up,” Cole said. “We’re in a position [in Pittsburgh] where we need quality innings and need starters to go deep in the ballgame, especially going into the second half push. This is a good step in the right direction.”

Cole said he felt good after his rehab start, noting he was able to throw a lot of fastballs down in the zone.

“[My command] in general was pretty good,” Cole said. “There were a few misfires, a couple of fastballs up in the zone that we weren’t actually trying to go up. They had true life and were thrown right. It’s not going to be perfect when you come out, it’s been awhile since I’ve touched a mound during a game.”

Cole quickly had his velocity in the mid-90s, throwing a 94 MPH fastball to open the game. He sat in the 93-94 MPH range during his three innings and touched 96 MPH.

Cole opened the game by getting Tony Renda to fly out, and he then struck out Carlos Triunfel. He let a 94 MPH fastball get a little away, hitting Scott Schebler around the arm/upper chest area. Steve Selsky reached on an infield single, on a grounder that second baseman Alen Hanson had to range far to his left for and throw to Cole covering first base. But Cole threw out Schebler trying to score on the play to end the inning.

In the second inning, Cole worked around a one-out single by striking out Chris Berset and Seth Mejias-Brown. Cole struck out the side in the third inning, working around a fielding error by Josh Bell. Two of those strikeouts — against Juan Perez and Schebler — came on 95 MPH fastballs located at the knees.

“Nice to get pitch count up, get out of innings smoothly and work out of stretch,” Cole said. “For the most part we executed pitches.”

Cole threw a simulated game on Friday and it was decided he would throw a rehab game after seeing how he recovered physically.

“Once we got through those next couple of days we decided this was the next step,” Cole said. “We’ve been balancing the physical and mental aspect the whole time. It’s been nice to go out there and not think about it, and just get back into the delivery and back in the swing of things.”

The next few days will be key to see how Cole physically responds to his outing, but all early indications seem to point to no setbacks.

“We have a job to do the next four days and that’s to recover for the next step,” Cole said. “Whatever this presents we’ll be able to handle. You go through different types of soreness and different types of everything throughout the year. It’s good to get your feet wet for three innings and get prepared for that full start next time.”

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