Gerrit Cole may have allowed a run in his first inning of spring training work, but the pitcher is rarely results-oriented, especially in an exhibition game.
Rather, the right-hander focused on making solid pitches and getting his work in on the mound to get ready for the season.
“I was comfortable out there,” Cole said following his outing. “Just trying to settle into some pitches, make some good pitches, throw some good breaking ball shapes out there, come out of it feeling good. We accomplished those things, would like to clean the lineup for the next outing.”
Cole opened up the game allowing a single to Robbie Grossman, but retired the next two batters. With one on and two out, Cole allowed two more singles and a walk before a strikeout to retire the side. He finished his outing with three hits and one walk allowed on 28 pitches (15 strikes).
“You want to come out of here feeling healthy having thrown all your pitches,” Cole said. “There’s always something to work on every time you take the mound. We’ll look to improve on where we started from today going forward. In terms of the shapes of the pitches, the velocity, especially relative to the effort, it’s a pretty good start from that standpoint.”
With Opening Day just a month away, there should be at least four or five more opportunities for Cole to do whatever fine-tuning he needs to be ready for that start. But for the 30-year-old, this was the perfect first step.
“I think you just kind of want to get a good footing and feel pretty good after the first few,” Cole said. “We’re monitoring what the pitches look like coming out of the hand, which includes location, which wasn’t quite where it should be today. It’s tracking a lot of what we’ve been throwing a few times out and steadily improving. That’s always encouraging, and feeling really good is also tremendously important early.”