"I don't really think about it," he said after knocking his knuckle on the table he sat at. "Sometimes wins and losses are out of your control. So I love getting them, but my job is to go out there and just, with whatever I got that day, just give my team the best chance to win."
In the 22 starts since that outing against the White Sox, Cole is 16-0 with a 1.84 ERA, but more importantly, the Astros are 20-2 when he's taken the mound.
"I feel I've executed that (gameplan) more oftentimes than not. Because we have such an unbelievable offense and we play such tight D, and we've just been working really well as a unit for the second half of the season, I think that statistic has taken off a little bit, for lack of a better word."
Cole will throw the first pitch Saturday night with the Astros leading the series 1-0. He'll face a Rays lineup that scored eight runs, five earned, against him over 12.2 innings in two regular season starts with 24 strikeouts.
"The offense is tough," Cole said of the Rays. "Some unique hitters with a lot of talent, an aggressive mentality, good awareness of the strike zone. Don't give up at-bats or give up pitches. Some uniqueness to them in the type of hitters that they have, and well coached and well prepared. It's going to be a tough battle."
Starting opposite Cole in game two will be last year's American League Cy Young winner Blake Snell. Surgery to remove bone chip in his elbow cost the lefty most of the second half. In 23 starts, Snell is 6-8 with a 4.29 ERA, up from the 1.89 ERA that earned him the Cy Young. His strikeout rate did rise from 11 per nine innings to 12.4. In three starts since returning from the injured list, Snell allowed three runs in six innings with six walks and seven strikeouts. He needed just 26 pitches to get through two innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers in his first start back, but need 114 pitches to record 12 outs in his last two.
"I had an up-and-down season," Snell said Friday. "I had a lot to go through and battle. And just to be here and be part of it is very exciting for me, and it allows me to prove a lot of things to myself before the season's over, whenever that is."
Gerrit Cole has been dominant for over four months, but now that the calender has turned to October he knows the real work starts.
"You don't take these kinds of things for granted. We've put in a lot of hard work to get into this position, and now probably some of the hardest work is in front of us. But we've prepared and so it's time to go out and relax and trust and not really approach it any different than how we've been approaching it, because the way we've been approaching it has been pretty consistent all year with the mindset that our process will work in October."