The Pittsburgh Pirates are having a successful season so far in 2013 by Pirates standards, as the team is just four games out of first place in June with a 35-25 record and after dealing with some pitching depth issues, the team is getting ready to call up its best prospect in Gerrit Cole.
According to Hardball Talk, the Pirates are getting ready to promote Cole after he was the first overall pick in 2011 out of UCLA and he is expected to pitch against the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday. The Pirates are ready to bring up the prospect that MLB.com says is one of the best in baseball and the 22-year-old comes in after starting 12 games at Triple-A with a 2.91 ERA and 47/28 K/BB ratio in 68 innings.
Cole was selected the previous season by the Yankees, but returned to school and ended up as the number one pick. His stats of 6.2 strikeouts per nine innings while walking 3.7 batters per nine innings will need improvement, but he has been holding teams to a .190 batting average and has thrown two back to back starts with seven shutout innings and the Pirates are ready to bring him in after the Wandy Rodriguez injury.
The team has been slumping on offense despite their record and rank 26th in the league in runs and 27th in batting average and they are also in the bottom of the league in on-base and slugging percentage.
