Astros ride Cole’s 15 K’s to within 1 win of ALCS
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HOUSTON — The Astros’ pair of aces dealt a pair of wins.
Gerrit Cole carried his splendid September into an outstanding October with a 15-strikeout performance and Alex Bregman handed fans chanting MVP the mighty swing they craved. The Astros survived a wild ninth inning to beat the Rays 3-1 on Saturday night for a 2-0 lead in their AL Division Series.
The Astros are one win from reaching the AL Championship Series for the third straight year.
“We’ve got a lot more work to take care of,” Cole said. ”There’s a few months this winter that maybe we can sit back and have a drink about it. Right now, it’s on to the next one.”
Cole, 5-0 with a 1.07 ERA in six starts last month, set an Astros postseason strikeouts record over 72⁄ scoreless innings to win his franchise-record 17th straight decision. The strikeouts tied for third-most in a postseason game, behind only Bob Gibson’s 17 in the 1968 World Series and Kevin Brown’s 16 in a 1998 NLDS.
“He was incredible,” manager AJ Hinch said. ”He had complete command of the entire game.”
Cole’s performance came after fellow ace and Cy Young Award contender Justin Verlander pitched seven scoreless innings to lead the Astros to a 6-2 win in Friday’s opener.
True throwback performances. “Whether it’s about the new-age opener or pulling guys third time through, most of the people that support that haven’t had Verlander or Cole on their team,” Hinch said. “It’s hard for me to relate to having to pull guys early or wanting to pull guys early when these guys are putting up these kinds of performances. I’m going to roll with these boys while we have them.”
Cole (1-0), who led the majors with 326 strikeouts in the regular season, extended his big league record with his 10th straight game with at least 10 Ks. The Rays were unable to string anything together off of him on a night he induced 33 swings and misses — the most in a postseason game since MLB started tracking the stat in 2008 — and threw a career-high 118 pitches.