Gerrit Cole Punched Out SIXTEEN Dbacks In A One-Hit, Complete Game Shutout

Giancarlo Stanton, JD Martinez, Marcell Ozuna, Jake Arrieta, Christian Yelich, Shohei Ohtani — the list is long for notable players who switched teams from 2017 to 2018, but the man who has made the greatest impact of them all? Gerrit Cole, formerly of the Pittsburgh Pirates, now of the defending World Series champion Houston Astros.

Last night, Cole toed the rubber for the seventh time this season and whiffed SIXTEEN Dbacks hitters over a complete game, one-hit shutout, lowering his ERA to 1.42 on the year, which is third in the American League behind his teammate Justin Verlander (1.13) and CC Sabathia (1.39). Cole now leads the majors with 77 strikeouts in his 50.2 innings, which are second to only Corey Kluber (52.1), the man who he’s trying to dethrone as the American League Cy Young award winner.

In his seven starts for the Astros this year, Cole has struck out double digit batters in five of them. He didn’t have his FIRST double digit strikeout game last year until July 19. He had two double digit strikeout games total in 2017. Keep in mind, Houston went into this season with Cole as their number FOUR starter. The Astros feature not one, not two, but three starting pitchers in the top 10 in the MLB in ERA, all of which are under two — Cole, Verlander, and Charlie Morton (1.72).

More news from around the league last night:

Albert Pujols got his 3,000th career hit

Four Dodgers pitchers combined to no-hit the Padres in Mexico

Mookie Betts homered again to lead the majors in every offensive category imaginable