Gerrit Cole knew he was approaching 200 strikeouts for the season on Friday night, but only because the milestone was physically in his line of sight.
“Yeah, well it’s on the board,” Cole said. “When I’m checking the velo to make sure everything is coming in at different speeds, it’s right there, so it’s hard.”
So, Cole knew he was sitting at 199 strikeouts when he faced Oakland’s Sean Murphy with two outs in the sixth inning, in what was likely his last batter of the night.
After Murphy swung and missed at strike three, Cole was able to look out at the board in center field and see that he had thrown a 91 mph changeup, and watch that season strikeout total change to 200, closing his night out by becoming the fastest Yankee ever to reach that milestone, doing it in 24 starts to best David Cone’s previous mark of 25.
“It’s pretty special in this organization,” Cole said. “We’re running out of numbers, for Pete’s sake. We have a lot of good players…I’m glad we can push things forward in that regard from a Yankees perspective.”
More importantly for Cole, he held the A’s scoreless through six innings, striking out nine to get to 200 and give the Yankees their 13th win in a row. For Cole, he has now allowed just one earned run in 17.2 innings since coming back from the COVID-19 IL.
“I had a good mix,” Cole said. “At times the location was great, at time it was kind of sub-par…I finished stronger than I started.”
Despite his bout with COVID and a clear adjustment phase after Major League Baseball cracked down on the use of foreign substances, Cole has maintained his ace form with a lower spin rate, and even if 200 strikeouts wasn’t on his radar at the start of the season, it was always in his field of vision out on the mound.
“No, it’s not a goal. It’s just my job,” Cole said. “For me, I just go out there and try to throw a quality start…it’s a special little record, but it’s a little one.”
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