NEW YORK — For one of the unquestioned greatest pitchers of his generation, Gerrit Cole is still without many of the accolades that are often associated with such greatness.
He’s never won a Cy Young award. He’s never won a World Series. He’s never even started an All-Star Game. Many of his accomplishments have been overshadowed, mostly for reasons beyond his control.
As he was climbing toward the baseball mountaintop in Pittsburgh, charismatic superstar teammate Andrew McCutchen became the natural face of the Pirates’ brief revitalization. His best year in Houston, 2019, saw Cole lead the American League in ERA and all of Major League Baseball in strikeouts. Still, Justin Verlander beat him for the Cy Young and the Nationals beat him for a championship. His superb 2020 season, like many things, will mostly be lost to the pandemic, fading out of our collective memory with the passage of time. Then came 2021, yet another Cy Young-caliber season for Cole, who had to settle for second place, and whose season ended with the Red Sox knocking him out of the wild-card game just six outs in.
