Gerrit Cole Is Having Fun
Gerrit Cole is going to be the starting pitcher for the Houston Astros tonight as the Astros will play against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Cole's record this season is 9-1. He has started in 16 games this season and is looking for his tenth winning tonight. Cole will be looking to tie his teammate Charlie Morton for most pitching wins on the Astros this season with 10. The other starting pitchers for the Astros, Justin Verlander and Lance McCullers Jr., also have 9 wins. You can see that the Astros starting pitching is very strong. It's not hard to believe if all the starting pitchers for the Astros stay together for years to come that the Houston will be one of the scariest teams in the MLB.
When Cole was on the Pirates there would be a lot of times where Cole would seem to be frustrated a lot even when he was pitching well. Cole might have been frustrated a lot because he realized after spending time with the Pirates that the organization did not really care about wanting to win championships and the general manager of the Pirates Neal Huntington only wanted to make money. Cole was probably happy that the Houston Astros wanted to trade their players for him because he knew he was going to an organization whose goal is just to keep winning championships. There had to be a time during this season in the Astros locker room when Cole and other starting pitcher for the Houston Astros who also happened to be a former Pirates starting pitcher, Charlie Morton, started having a conversation with each other and one of those two guys said to the other "Thank Jesus we are here in Houston. Pittsburgh was awful." Then I could imagine, after one of the starting pitchers said to the other that statement that they were both laughing so hard that they fell on the floor because they both realized how God awful Pittsburgh was.
The Houston Astros organization really knows how to get starting pitchers to pitch like an absolute beast. All Pittsburgh Pirates fans have to still be stunned to this day how Charlie Morton won Game 7 of the World Series for the Houston Astros as the Astros defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium. There is no doubt in my mind that one of the Houston Astros starting pitchers is going to win the AL Cy Young Award this season. I would actually be shocked if another pitcher from another team in the American League wins the award. Yes, I do know that Luis Servino is doing really well for the Yankees don't worry.
What you got to like about Cole this season is the way his two-seam fastball and his four-seam fastball is working out for him. Now Cole's two-seam and four-seam fast ball was pretty good when he was with the Pirates but it just seemed that ever since he joined the Astros that the pitching staff has found a way to make Cole's fastballs more efficient. The most wins Cole has ever had in a regular season was 19 in 2015. I think Cole can get more than 19 wins once the 2018 regular season ends because of how well Cole and Astros' catcher Brian McCann's relationship between pitcher and catcher is working out when Cole is on the mound.
The Astros are currently on top of their division in the AL West with a record of 55-28. The AL West happens to be a very tough division this year as there are four teams in the division with at least a .500 record. The Seattle Mariners are not far away from being the top team of the division as the Mariners have a record of 51-31.
Gerrit Cole is having a fun time with the Astros right now and if the whole team continues to have success in the future he will retire as a Houston Astro and he will forget all about that he ever played with the Pirates.