Wake Up With Gerrit Cole Hitting A Three-Run Homer
Not that he needed to help his own cause very much, but Gerrit Cole hammered a 3-run home run as part of Pittsburgh’s 8-run assault on the Arizona Diamondbacks. Cole joined Noah Syndergaard, Bartolo Colon, Adam Wainwright, Jake Arrieta, Madison Bumgarner and Kenta Maeda as the only pitchers to leave the yard this year. With their three-game sweep of the Dbacks, the Pirates have won four straight, and 9 of their last 11 games to improve to a season-high 8 games over .500. Despite the +94 gap in run differential between the division-leading Cubs and the second place Pirates, Pittsburgh is only 4.5 games back of first place, thanks in part to the Cubs losing 8 of their last 14 games. Four and a half games is the smallest lead the Cubs have had in the NL Central since May 2 when they had a 4-game lead.