Gerrit Cole may not be the second coming of Doug Drabek. Heck, he may not even be the second coming of Wilber Cooper.

Still, the rookie right-handed pitcher has given the Pittsburgh Pirates something they haven’t had in quite some time.

Buzz.

And a power arm.

Sure, the Bucs have had hard throwers come through the organization in recent years, but nothing like the juice that flows through Cole’s right wing.

The first three pitches of his Major League Baseball career clocked in at 96, 96 and 99 mph.

That’s Death Valley heat. That’s pizza oven heat.

Gone are the days of soft tossers like Paul Maholm, Zach Duke and Tom Gorzelanny. Those three one-time “top” pitching prospects in the Pirates’ organization had a hard time breaking a pane of glass with their fastballs.

No such problem for Cole. He can take down a team of Giants with it, as he did Tuesday night.

This Bucs’ front office gets it. Power arms are the way to go in today’s MLB. Finesse can only get you so far and can get you only so many clutch outs.

Strikeouts kill rallies. Sawing off a bat with a moving mid-90s heater ends innings.

Those are the guys you build rotations around. Not soft-tossing lefties.

And those guys put fans in the seats.

PNC Park was at near capacity for Cole’s debut — on a Tuesday night.

There were 30,000 fans there to see Cole’s first outing, nearly twice the average attendance for a midweek Bucco game.

There was a palpable buzz in the building.

Cole was pretty good — six shutout innings before he got into trouble and was lifted in the seventh. He only struck out two, but I think that was just an aberration. There were some pretty weak swings out of the Giants’ lineup.

He made Buster Posey look silly. Not many pitchers make the Giants’ all-star catcher look foolish at the dish.

The strikeouts will come, just like the fans did to see him pitch.

It’s been a long time since the Pirates had players to be excited about.

Sure, the team always had a few stars, even during the leanest of lean years.

During this 20-year losing streak you may or may not have heard about depending on whether you reside under a rock or in Biosphere 2, the Pirates have had guys turn in great seasons.

Kevin Young, Jason Kendall, Brian Giles, Jason Bay, Ian Snell and Oliver Perez all had one, or several, standout seasons.

None would be confused with a bona fide franchise player.

The Pirates have those franchise players now.

Andrew McCutchen already is one. Starling Marte could be on the cusp of being one. Jeff Locke has the chops to be a No. 2 starter. There’s still Jameson Taillon on the way to join a rotation that could be young and diversified for many years to come.

And, of course, there’s Cole.

He could be the second coming of, gasp, Snell, or, even bigger gasp, Perez.

Or he could be something special.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.