Cole Cook Closes Strong for Captains

In February, Cole Cook showed up at George Robert Field to lend a helping hand to head baseball coach Mike Voelkel. Cook worked with his alma mater while preparing for spring training and now, six months later, his second minor league season is nearing an end.

"It's great to come back and help out with the team whenever I have the chance," said the 22-year-old Cook, a 2007 Pali High alumnus. "It feels good to be able to offer the guys advice because only a few years ago I was where they are now. I had a lot of fun playing for Palisades."

Cook is a starting pitcher for the Lake County Captains of Eastlake, Ohio, a Class A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians. The 2011 campaign has been a trying one but the 6-foot-6, 200-pound right-hander is proof that it's not how you start, but how you finish that matters most.

The Captains, the defending Midwest League champions, are at the bottom of the league's Western Division standings with eight games left. The season is split in two, with the first two teams in the first half and first two teams in the second half qualifying for the playoffs. Lake County ended the first half of the season 28-41 and at 21-41 in the second half through Sunday, is out of the postseason race.

Cook, who is currently on the team's seven-day disabled list, has a 5-11 record with a 4.54 earned run average and 68 strikeouts in 105 innings pitched. However, the former Pali High and Pepperdine University standout has improved his stats dramatically in the second half of the season. After a 2-8 record in the first half, he is 3-3 in the second half. He has lowered his ERA by a full run (from 4.90 to 3.89) and has more than cut in half his hits and earned runs allowed.

"I pitched in a lot of big games and I have lots of memories from high school," Cook said. "It's nice to see that the Dolphins have continued winning since I graduated. We won league every year I played [varsity] and it's nice to see the current team keeping the standard high and carrying on the tradition."

An honor roll student all four years at Pali High, Cook earned All-American and All-City honors as a junior and a senior and was an All-League first team choice as a 12th-grader, posting a 10-2 record with 113 strikeouts. He played for the Angels Elite team in summer 2006 and 2007 and the Brewers Area Code team in 2006.

Originally selected out of high school by the Seattle Mariners in the 36th round of the 2007 Major League Draft, Cook didn't sign, opting instead to take his blazing fastball and wicked slider right up the coast to Malibu, where he posted impressive numbers at Pepperdine.

After missing his entire freshman season with a broken wrist suffered while he was removing the tarp from the field following a rain storm, Cook led the Waves in wins and innings pitched in 2009, earning a spot on the Louisville Slugger Freshman All-American and All-West Coast Conference Freshman teams. As a redshirt sophomore in 2010 he went 5-6 with a 2.93 ERA, made the All-WCC first team and finished first on the staff in innings pitched and strikeouts.

"It was definitely the right move going to Pepperdine and getting that college experience," Cook said. "I liked the coaches and not only did I become a better pitcher, I also grew a lot as a person."

Cook was selected in the fifth round (150th overall) by Cleveland in the 2010 First-Year Player Draft and spent his first season in the minors in Niles, Ohio, with the Mahoning Valley Scrappers from the New York-Penn League, where he went 0-3 in four starts and allowed 12 runs with 14 strikeouts.

Click here to watch a YouTube video of Cole Cook in action during spring training in April.

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