Cole has to 'turn it around' after allowing Marlins seven runs

Gerrit Cole was not searching for answers as to what went wrong Thursday night.

He's very familiar with the issues that led to him allowing seven runs on 11 hits in 4 2/3 innings of the Pirates' 7-1 loss to the Marlins at PNC Park.

Those same problems have plagued him over the past three weeks.

His fastball is elevated. Breaking pitches are not breaking enough. Some pitches are exceptional but too many are mistakes, leading to opponents creating harder contact than usual. Some of those issues even lie in his delivery.

But knowing what is wrong does not make the most difficult stretch of his career any easier.



"I haven’t really gone through something like this before, but that’s certainly the farthest thing from an excuse," he said after allowing seven runs in a second consecutive start. "I’ve got to turn it around."

The loss dropped Cole's record to 3-6 and inflated his ERA to 4.83, despite being one of the top pitchers in the National League through his first nine starts. His ERA was just 2.84 on May 18 after he navigated through similar issues against the Nationals to allow one run in seven innings.