Pirates won't shut down Gerrit Cole

The Pirates won't shut down Gerrit Cole because of a pitch count or innings count, Jon Morosi reports. Here's Neal Huntington:

“Every one of our pitchers has a hard pitch count. But based on where he is right now and where we project him going forward, he should be available to us through the World Series as a starting pitcher.”

Huntington specifies that that doesn't mean the Pirates will use Cole as a starter -- that hasn't been determined yet. In fact, it's not clear whether he's one of their three best starters. If he pitches the rest of the season like he did against Texas, then he certainly is. But our determinations of which starters are most dependable seem to change from day to day.

Cole has pitched 166.1 innings between the majors and minors this year. If he were to start all the way through the playoffs, that might put him at around 200 innings, which would be a remarkable total for a 22-year-old in this day and age.