Astros: Gerrit Cole endures worst game of his career

The Houston Astros and starter Gerrit Cole had one of those nights that they would just as soon forget in a 9-4 loss to the Rangers.

Cole only completed 4.1 innings and surrendered nine runs, eight of those runs were earned. That was Cole’s shortest outing as an Astros starter and the most runs he’s given up. In fact, it was the worst start that he’s had in his entire career.

The Texas Rangers collected nine hits and three walks against Cole, who saw his ERA go from 3.24 to 5.22 in one night. The eight earned runs that Cole was credited for was one run shy of the nine earned runs he’s allowed in the previous four starts total. Definitely, a game that he would like to wipe away from his memory and move on.

The game came unraveled early as Cole faced ten batters in the first inning. Shin-Soo Choo started off the inning with a double and was immediately knocked in by Danny Santana‘s single. Santana then stole second and Elvis Andrus reached on a walk after working ten pitches. Cole would issue another walk to Nomar Mazara loading the bases with no outs.

Joey Gallo came up and became Cole’s first of eight strikeout victims. Asdrubal Cabrera then singled to left scoring Santana and Andrus. Logan Forsythe followed that with another single to left knocking in Mazara. After Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit into a fielder’s choice, Delino De Shields reached on an error by Carlos Correa, allowing Cabrera to score. Texas is up 5-0 before you know it.

Cole would give up another run in the third by a lead-off home run by Gallo. Then Houston got on the board in the top of the fifth when Josh Reddick led off with a single and advanced to second on a wild pitch by Adrian Sampson. Max Stassi followed that up with his first homer of the season. Texas 6 – Astros 2

In the bottom of that same inning, the Rangers would get back those two runs and add another to the lead making it a 9-2 ball game. Cole’s night would mercifully end. The Astros did add two meaningless runs in the seventh when George Springer hit his sixth home run of the season with Jake Marisnick on base. Final score 9-4.

After the game, Cole explained that he felt like he was forecasting his pitches to the batters. “I felt like they were on a lot of stuff in the first inning, especially their takes and some of their pitches they chose to swing at,” Cole said. “I think they were maybe a little bit of a step ahead of me in terms of maybe being able to identify what pitch I was throwing. I made some adjustments throughout the game and that seemed to clean that up, and by the time I got to the fifth, I was dog tired and started to spray again. I got as deep as I could. I kept trying to make quality pitches.”

A night to forget for Cole, time to move on, and Cole is more than capable of doing that. The Astros will also try to forget last night and take the rubber game of the series and even up the season match-up with the Rangers. It’ll be Collin McHugh trying to right the ship against Shelby Miller.