The Sports Monitor

It had been more than two years since I had been to a baseball game. That ended Tuesday night. Gerrit Cole warming up. Pic courtesy of my lousy phone camera. And what a night to catch a game; it was a playoff-like atmosphere at PNC Park. Gerrit Cole had a smashing debut, striking out his first batter faced on three pitches. In his first at-bat, he drove in two runs. Starling Marte hit a homer, Pedro Alvarez hit one, too, and the Pirates beat the World Champion Giants 8-2. What more could you want? Burger featuring egg and bacon on a doughnut. Well, I guess the timing for the metal-detector wands, but the Pirates admitted their mistake on that one. That wouldn't have been much of a problem if there weren't 30,000 fans there. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to see Cole's first start. He hit the upper-90s, including 98 in the seventh inning. He only struck out two, but he had tremendous control -- he didn't walk a batter and had a three-ball count o...

No surprise yesterday as UCLA's Gerrit Cole was selected No. 1 overall by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the baseball draft. The big surprise to me is the statistics put up by a supposed elite college pitcher: six wins, eight losses and a 3.31 ERA. I'd expect him to lead his team or conference in strikeouts and reach double-digits in wins. Oh, that's right, Cole's teammate did all that. Trevor Bauer went 13-2 and set a Pac-10 record with 203 strikeouts. His ERA was 1.25. And this stat really stood out: he ended the season with nine straight complete games. But back to Cole. My big question: If he's struggling to get college hitters out with a fastball that can hit 100 mph, how is he supposed to get major leaguers out? The Pirates feel pretty confident he will. "We felt he'd have the biggest potential impact for us of anybody on the board," general manager Neal Huntington said. The Pirates obviously project him to be an outstanding pitcher. And...

Gerrit Cole looks like the No. 1 pick overall in tonight's baseball draft. Ordinarily, I'd say that might be a good choice. However, that first overall pick belongs to the Pittsburgh Pirates, so I'm skeptical that they'll make the right choice. The Pirates have a long and storied history of losing for nearly 20 years. Along those same lines, they have a long and storied history of making bad selections in the first round of the draft. Remember Bryan Bullington at No. 1 overall? How about the great John VanBenschoten? He's the guy that led college baseball in home runs and the Pirates thought he'd be better as a pitcher. Then there's J.J. Davis, Bobby Bradley and Sean Burnett. Ugh. That's why I'll watch with trepidation tonight to see who the Pirates select. Normally, I'd be all for drafting a pitcher who has a fastball that can hit 100 mph. But Cole's dominance just isn't there for a first-round pick. He's not even the bes...