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AL DIVISION SERIES: INDIANS VS ASTROS

October 5, 2018

Gerrit Cole

Houston, Texas - pregame 1

Q. What are some keys for you to keep this as normal as possible even though it's not really a normal start?
GERRIT COLE: I think just continue the process that I do before. There are some starts that are bigger than others, but the process stays the same, and how I prepare, how I evaluate the scouting reports and whatnot will be the same.

Q. Does your experience pitching with Pittsburgh in the postseason, when it's a really big deal at the time, does that serve you at all as you get ready for tomorrow?
GERRIT COLE: I would hope so. I can't speak to the Championship Series or the World Series, but the Wild Card definitely takes some years off your life. The Division Series against the Cardinals was hard-fought in 2013, and I pitched twice in that. I remember those games really well. So I'm going to draw on those experiences for sure.

Q. Do you expect J.V. to give you a little bit of a blueprint of how to attack this lineup today? Assuming that he's successful, something you'll pay closer attention to?
GERRIT COLE: Yeah, for sure I'm going to watch closely, just as excited as everybody else. But I will be down in the video room going over stuff, and I will be reviewing tomorrow what he did today.

But I am a fan of baseball too, so I would just like to kind of enjoy this matchup. It's pretty primetime.

Q. I know all of the pitchers are very close on the Astros. How much do you all rely on each other to kind of help and bounce ideas off each other and things like that?
GERRIT COLE: Yeah, throughout the season, for sure we've communicated a lot. From passing one perspective to the other on what we're seeing, I expect it to be the same for this series as well, and everybody will be watching very intently for sure. But there's also a heightened level of communication between the entire staff and the catching staff as well. We all need to be on the same page in terms of how we're attacking guys, how we're finishing guys off, how we think guys are adjusting as the series moves along.

So there are appropriate times to have some of those conversations, and I anticipate that we will be having them throughout the series.

Q. The regular season is such a long haul. Can you describe how ecstatic you are to finally be at this moment to be pitching for this particular team in the postseason as you're pursuing another World Series?
GERRIT COLE: Yeah, it's what you put all the hard work in for. The guys are tremendously excited, as well as I am. It's kind of a unique feeling having a handful of days off before this. You know, the regular season is done, so you shake your teammates' hands. You congratulate them on a great body of work throughout the season.

I just feel regardless of what comes after that, there's always some like mental trigger that the regular season is over. So you're kind of in this like postseason mode or off-season mode but still playing baseball because you're in great baseball shape. So it's pretty ideal. It's what we look forward to.

Q. The Astros seem to have a track record of making great players even better. What do you think this organization does to get the most out of their players?
GERRIT COLE: I think they're really forward thinking. They think that they have great personnel that surrounds the players. I think they have a system analytically that's really advanced and is designed so that the player can better -- you know, it's designed for the player to better themselves. And then A.J. plays his hand accordingly on how he wants to design the lineup or the defense and whatnot.

But you're not asked to conform to a system. You're asked to use the system to make yourself better. So from an analytic standpoint, from a scouting report standpoint, from teammates and instructors, there's just a high level of quality here that's ahead of quite a bit of other teams.

Just as a player coming into a situation like this, you just want to try to take advantage of it to the fullest and just be grateful.

Q. Obviously, Donaldson wasn't in the lineup first time you faced these guys in the regular season. What different dynamic does that lineup have with him in the middle, and the lineup as a whole that you have to navigate tomorrow, how tough is it?
GERRIT COLE: Really, I'm not quite sure. Faced him when he was with Oakland, but that was a while ago. I don't know how he's playing. I don't know how he's feeling. I've watched some of his swings of late, but you always want to see how guys respond in these heightened adrenaline situations.

This is not a team that I'm very familiar with. I think I've pitched against them twice in my career. I know Donaldson is a good player, MVP type player, MVP candidate, MVP. I'm sure he brings some thunder to that lineup that's already well equipped.

Q. I haven't had a chance to ask you about this. In the locker room celebration in Toronto, you went up to Brian McCann and called him a unicorn. What was that all about?
GERRIT COLE: He's kind of -- he's just one of a kind. Actually, I do have to give credit to Lance because he coined the term. Just to have a guy catch 1,500 games, be able to hit 20 home runs while playing that much behind the dish for however many -- over a decade of consecutive seasons, to provide the type of leadership that he does, to have the type of savvy in terms of pitch calling, signs, game management, you know, really to be a team leader, it's a really special combination.

I don't think it comes around very much, and I think that's why we kind of refer to him as this fictional character because, in my opinion, he's right up there with the folklore of the Johnny Benches and the Yogi Berras and the Pudge Rodriguezes, and the type of catchers that go down in the Hall of Fame and people don't forget. He's one of those guys for us. So that's how we feel about him.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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