Astros: Cole nets AL Pitcher of Month, Player of Week awards

Gerrit Cole took home a pair of awards shortly after finishing his regular season.

Gerrit Cole’s incredible season continues. The Astros right-hander and Cy Young Award co-frontrunner took home the AL Pitcher of the Month award for September and was also named the AL Player of the Week for the season’s final week.

This is the third time this year Cole has been named the league’s pitcher of the month, having taken home the award in June and July. He’s gone 11-0 with a 1.79 ERA in the second half of the season and is practically in a dead heat with teammate Justin Verlander in the race for the game’s most prestigious pitching award.

In six September starts, Cole was 5-0 with a 1.07 ERA, striking out 74 batters in 42 innings for a ridiculous 15.9 strikeouts per nine innings, his highest of any calendar month this season. He held hitters to a measly .140 batting average and .443 OPS, finishing his stellar season on a high note.

He also posted perfect win-loss records in June and July with sub-2.00 ERAs, but September was far and away his best month. He posted the most wins, most strikeouts and lowest ERA of any month, setting himself up well for both the postseason and a big offseason payday.

For the weekly award, Cole made two starts in the season’s final week. He went 2-0, allowing just one run in 12 total innings while striking out 24. He set a new Astros franchise record for strikeouts in a season, ending up with 326 strikeouts on the year.

Cole is the fourth Astros player to win a Player of the Week award this season. George Springer was a co-winner in early May, Yuli Gurriel won in early June, and Verlander won at the end of August.

This falls short of 2018’s total of five Astros taking home weekly honors. Verlander won twice, joined by Gurriel, Alex Bregman and Evan Gattis.