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Cole keeping elite company with win streak

By John Perrotto for The 3 min read

Pirates right-hander Gerrit Cole is starting to move into rare air after beating the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday night at Phoenix to run his winning streak to seven consecutive games.

Just four Pirates starting pitchers have had longer streaks since World War II – — two by Dock Ellis (10 games in 1971 and eight in 1974) and one each by Steve Blass (nine in 1968) Vernon Law (eight in 1965) and A.J. Burnett (eight in 2012).

The club record for a starter is 11 games by Rip Sewell in 1943 and the overall record is 22 by relief ace Elroy Face from 1958-59.

Pirates manager Clint Hurdle has a pretty good idea of why Cole has not lost since last September.

“He has the ability to control bat speed, number one,” Hurdle said. “It’s not about velocity. It’s about late life. It’s about movement. It’s about secondary pitches. He’s able to spin the ball. He’s able to change speeds. When he can use the slow breaking ball to drop it down to 78 mph and can throw a fastball 96-97, you are trying to cover an 18-19-mph gap, which is one of the biggest challenges in our game.

“There are a bunch of pitchers that can do that. He is one of them. And on top of that, he really likes to compete.”

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The Pirates struck out 137 times in their first 17 games, an average of 8.1 a game. They had also whiffed in 22.6 percent of their 606 plate appearance.

However, as far as Hurdle is concerned, strikeouts should be looked at in context.

“The one thing that very rarely gets talked about is who’s doing the striking out as far as who’s on the mound on the other team,” Hurdle said. “That’s the first thing I look at, the dynamic of the pitcher involved. We’ve faced three or four pitchers that have been on top of their games and they all have very good games to get on top of. We’ve drawn tough bulls to ride at times.

“Then you digress or you back down and you look at the location. Are we swinging at strikes? Are we leaving early? Are we chasing?”

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Andrew McCutchen is beginning to look like his old self, even though he was hitting just .189 with two home runs, 10 RBIs and no stolen bases in 16 games going into Saturday night’s game at Arizona.

The center fielder left the April 11 game at Milwaukee with soreness in his left knee then sat out the next day’s game against the Brewers.

McCutchen returned to the lineup for the April 13 home opener against Detroit. However, the next night, McCutchen looked hobbled as he slowed down on a ball in front of him, enabling Tigers shortstop Jose Iglesias to stretch what appeared was going to be a single into a double. However, McCutchen has played much better in field since then.

“He had some challenges with his knee and seems to have played through them,” Hurdle said. “He’s been moving much better.”

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