World Series: Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner's investment in Gerrit Cole still hasn't paid off with a championship
Yankees starting pitcher Gerrit Cole reacts during the fifth inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
When the Yankees signed Gerrit Cole to a record nine-year, $324 million contract before the 2020 season, a giddy Hal Steinbrenner said they’d have to win “some world championships” to validate the mammoth investment, the franchise’s largest at that time.
To be clear, Steinbrenner added “plural” for emphasis.
Five seasons later, the Yankees are now 0-for-5 in that pursuit, and none of those failures were as painful as the self-sabotage that led to Wednesday night’s October-ending 7-6 loss to the Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series.
All in one inning, too. A nightmare fifth, when the Yankees committed a pair of errors and also suffered an inexplicable brain freeze -- with neither Cole nor Anthony Rizzo beating Mookie Betts to first base on a routine grounder -- that opened the floodgates to five earned runs that wiped out the early 5-0 lead. Not to mention knocking the Yankees sideways mentally.
“I guess it’s a little hard to comprehend,” an exasperated Cole said afterward. “But at the same time, I feel like we came in the dugout like, ‘Wow!” But we were still in the ballgame. They put the ball in play, and in baseball, when you put the ball in play, you get rewarded for it sometimes.”
How did Cole perform overall? That’s tough to explain. Cole threw 108 pitches, his most this season after not passing 90 in four previous playoff starts, and the Yankees had a 6-5 lead when he left to a rousing standing ovation with two outs in the seventh inning.
Getting there was an adventure, however. Through four innings, Cole didn’t allow a hit, retiring the first eight Dodgers before a walk to Gavin Lux in the third. It was vintage Cole -- completely in control -- and with the Yankees staking him an early 5-0 lead, we figured the bags for L.A. already were packed.
“We definitely felt like we were starting to get momentum,” said Verdugo, who whiffed to make the final out of the 2024 season. “We felt like we were where we wanted to be and then some things kind of unraveled. And we were back to square one.”
The Yankees were 11-0 this season when Cole was handed three or more runs, and there was little reason to expect anything different Wednesday night -- or foresee his disastrous fifth inning, when the brilliant performance went entirely off the rails.
After throwing 49 pitches in four innings, Cole needed 38 to (barely) survive the fifth, when two costly errors and his own failure to cover first base opened the floodgates for five unearned runs. Aaron Judge somehow clanged Tommy Edman’s routine sinking liner off the heel of his glove and Anthony Volpe botched a short throw trying for a force play at third, loading the bases with one out.
Still, Cole muscled up, blazing a 99-mph fastball by a swinging Lux, then whiffed Shohei Ohtani with a knuckle curve. When Mookie Betts hit a slow spinner at Anthony Rizzo, the threat seemed to be averted. But Rizzo stood flat-footed waiting for the grounder, and Cole watched from halfway up the first-base line, allowing Betts an easy RBI infield single.
“I took a bad angle to the ball,” Cole said. “I wasn’t sure, really off the bat, how hard he hit it. I took a direct angle to it, as if to cut it off ... but by the time the ball got by me, I wasn’t in a position to cover first. Neither of us were, based on the spin of the baseball and him having to secure it. Just a bad read off the bat.”
Freddie Freeman followed with a two-run single and Teoscar Hernandez a two-run double to tie the score before a shell-shocked Cole finally got Enrique Hernandez on a bouncer to short. Still, Cole returned to get five more outs, a huge boost for the bullpen.
This was as close as Steinbrenner has ever been to a title since the Yankees’ last successful trip to the World Series in 2009. Judge wasn’t around for that, obviously, and his first home run in the Fall Classic -- a redemptive two-run blast in the first inning -- went for naught, thanks to his complicit role in that brutal fifth.
“I think falling short in the World Series will stay with me til I die, probably,” Judge said.
Cole had more than a ring at stake in Year Five of his contract. He can opt out when the World Series is over — a trademark of his agent, Scott Boras — but the Yankees then have the option to retain him by triggering a 10th year worth $36 million tacked on to the end of his current deal.
From the Yankees’ standpoint, they’d be paying a 34-year-old Cole, coming off spring elbow concerns that cost him the first 2 1/2 months, $180 million over the next five seasons. On the open market, Cole obviously would be at the top of this winter’s class, alongside Corbin Burnes (age 30) and Blake Snell (32) — two other Boras clients.
Keeping Cole, after what he’s meant for the franchise, would seem to be a no-brainer for the Yankees. Before the elbow glitch — numerous diagnostic tests showed nothing more serious than nerve inflammation and swelling — Cole had been the sport’s most durable pitcher, leading the majors with 664 innings through his first four seasons in pinstripes.
This October, Cole finished 1-0 with a 2.17 ERA, but that won’t be what he thinks about during the long winter ahead.
“This is as bad as it gets,” Cole said. “It’s the worst feeling you can have.”
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.