The Pirates have officially announced that Gerrit Cole will be starting the Wild Card game on October 7th against the Chicago Cubs.
According to Clint Hurdle, this was an easy decision, and a decision the Pirates seemed to have made weeks ago by the way they planned out their rotation over the last three weeks.
“We pretty much had scripted it out when we scripted the entire back end of September,” Hurdle said. “If there would’ve been a play-in game with the Cardinals, he would’ve been eligible to pitch that game. If there wasn’t a wild card game then he would’ve been eligible for game one [in the NLDS].