On Friday, by the numbers, Gerrit Cole had his best start of the year. He threw a truncated seven-inning, complete-game shutout, while striking out nine, and allowing just three baserunners. He had his best fastball working, missing triple digits by just a third of a mile per hour, overpowering an aggressive Orioles offense. Better yet, this was Cole’s first start of the year in which he hadn’t served up a long ball.
Despite posting his best counting stats of any start this season, though, his results were mostly a function of random batted-ball distribution, rather than Cole having solved his home-run problem.