Cole’s roll comes to a close
Led by Soto, Nationals seize Game 1 by handing Astros ace his first loss in five months
Gerrit Cole trudged toward the first-base dugout. His head hung and team trailed by three. Slowly, his feet shuffled across the dirt. The sport’s most dominant pitcher descended the steps, met the manager and shook his hand.
Cole traversed through a crowd of teammates and found a spot on the bench. For the first time in forever, the Astros needed to compensate for Cole’s average outing.
“I just felt like I wasn’t very crisp tonight,” he later said.
Game after game, Cole authored an awe-inspiring display of dominance dwarfing any this sport has ever seen from a starting pitcher. He had not received a loss since May 22. He struck out a franchise-record 326 batters. With free agency awaiting, the amount of money Cole will make boggles the mind.
Onlookers wondered how he could top a terrific performance from five or six days ago. He set a Division Series record with 25 strikeouts. Without anything resembling his best arsenal against the New York Yankees, he still threw seven scoreless innings in the Bronx during Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.
“He's been so good for so long,” manager A.J. Hinch said, “there builds this thought of invincibility and that it's impossible to beat him.”
Fallibility arrived on Tuesday. Handed a two-run lead after the first inning of his first World Series start, Cole yielded five runs and eight hits. Houston lost 5-4 in Game 1 of the World Series at Minute Maid Park, combusted by Cole’s outing and an inability to seize advantage of scoring opportunities.
“I didn’t have my A-game tonight and outside of a few pitches that kind of tacked on a couple runs, we worked well with what we had,” Cole said.
Cole’s start was his worst since May 22. He allowed more than two runs for the first time since Aug. 28. The five earned runs equaled his total for the entire month of September. He struck out only six. Two towering home runs were struck against him. Juan Soto, Washington’s wunderkind 20-year-old, torched Cole for a prodigious solo shot and a tworun double.
“In the bullpen, he was pretty much fine,” said catcher Martin Maldonado. “That was probably the best he’s thrown in the bullpen coming into the game. First inning was really good, then after that I don’t know what happened.”
Cole worked only one inning without a baserunner. The leadoff man reached in four of seven frames. A runner reached scoring position after Cole’s third pitch of the game. He was constantly in duress. For the first time in forever, he could not combat it.
Command of Cole’s slider and curveball in the strike zone was not apparent. Washington swung and missed just eight times against 56 of his four-seam fastballs. Cole generated only 13 whiffs against 104 pitches — paltry by his lofty standards.
Maldonado cited a lack of life on Cole’s fastball after a terrific, 10-pitch first.
“It wasn’t my sharpest game,” Cole said. “We had to get creative. I thought the fastball was leaking a little bit off the corner a couple times. I struggled with the curveball command. Buried us in some bad counts.”
Feel for his fastball was fleeting. Cole bisected home plate with a 96.2 mph four-seamer to Ryan Zimmerman during the second. The longest-tenured National nuked it to dead center field for a solo home run.
Soto struck for a solo home run in the fourth, feasting on an elevated four-seam fastball. He sent it where lefthanded hitters normally do not, onto the train tracks that run along left field at Minute Maid Park. The list of lefties who can launch baseballs there is brief.
“I mean, I threw him a good slider up and in, move onto the next pitch, challenge him up and away and he stays back and drives it,” Cole said. “That was a good swing on a good pitch.”
Behind his beleaguered bats, Cole’s mistakes were magnified. Houston tied its playoff-high with 10 hits but prolonged its misery with runners in scoring position. The Astros went 3-for-12 and, in 12 playoff games, are 17-for-82.
“I liked the at-bats. I even liked our at-bats with runners in scoring position,” Hinch said. “We had a little bit of bad luck. We did chase a little bit, as you're going to. Keep preaching, give yourself as many opportunities as you can.”
At its best, the Astros’ offense offers a merciless row of relentless hitters, men who work plate appearances and exhaust pitchers. Any adherence to a merry-goround mantra that once made this lineup so scary has disappeared in October.
Houston had baserunners in every inning but the fifth and ninth. Alex Bregman struck out twice with a runner aboard. Yordan Alvarez stranded the bases loaded in the seventh with a strikeout, too.
"It starts with me,” said Bregman, who struck out three times. “I've been terrible this postseason.”
The lineup exhausted Washington starter Max Scherzer for 111 pitches through five innings. Their plate appearances were prolonged and patient, free of the chasing that plagued them throughout the first two rounds of the postseason. In every inning but his last, Scherzer required at least 20 pitches.
Eight Astros reached against him. Only two scored, on Yuli Gurriel’s double during the first. Houston stranded six runners against Scherzer and 11 total.
“These are the most elite guys in the world, man,” George Springer said. “They’re not trying to give up runs. It’s hard to face these guys. We can’t really look into one thing or the other. We just have to string together an at-bat and see what happens.”
Springer socked a solo home run in the seventh and a run-scoring double in the eighth that pared the deficit to one. The Astros loaded the bases during the seventh and brought the tying run to the plate in the eighth. Houston could get no closer, handing Cole his first loss since late May.
“(Washington) came in and put really good at-bats up,” Hinch said. “Especially coming into the game where he punches out a couple guys, you get some momentum and energy in this building, he feeds off that, they were disciplined.”
Walking Kurt Suzuki to start the fifth was indefensible. Cole could not command his curveball and Suzuki was not as aggressive as Cole anticipated. The eight-hole hitter headed to first base after five pitches. Victor Robles rolled a single against the shift, sending Suzuki to second and the top of Washington’s lineup to face Cole a third time.
Trea Turner’s flyout offered only a small reprieve. Suzuki tagged up to third base. Adam Eaton stung a slider to right field. Suzuki scored, staking his team to a lead it never lost. Anthony Rendon grounded into a fielder’s choice. Soto loomed.
Cole fell behind 3-0. The starter stayed cautious, offering all offspeed pitches to this fastball-hunting phenom. Two curveballs and a slider stayed out of the strike zone. Soto did not chase until the fifth pitch, a filthy slider that filled the count. Cole came again with his best offspeed pitch.
The slider sailed over the middle and broke into the other batter’s box. Soto smashed it to the opposite field. The baseball banged off the out-of-town scoreboard. Both baserunners scored while Soto celebrated at second, something so few batters could do against Cole during his remarkable run.
“It puts it all in perspective,” Hinch said. “It's not easy to do what these guys do and the streaks they put together of dominance. We do tip our cap to it.”
“And now our job is to win a few games to get him the ball in Game 5.”