Yankees' Gerrit Cole enjoys 'the stakes' as he prepares for ALCS Game 2 on Tuesday

On the eve of his second career postseason start as a Yankee in 2020, Gerrit Cole somewhat tersely answered a simple question.

What do you specifically like about pitching at this time of year?

“The stakes,” he said.

Cole generally has thrived in his career in those instances, a trend he and the Yankees hope continues Tuesday night when he takes the mound for Game 2 of the American League Championship Series.

“My preparatory process is very similar to the regular season,” Cole, 11-6 with a 2.94 ERA in 19 career postseason starts, said Monday. “Things are dialed up a little bit, intensity and media, and you’ve got to do a press conference before you pitch and whatnot, but essentially it’s the same game. So I try to stay as close to what I normally do. Probably the more experience I get, the more certainty I have in that.”

Cole has done especially well against Cleveland. He is 7-2 with a 2.82 ERA against the Guardians in the regular season and 4-0 with a 1.98 ERA against them in the playoffs (the first of those four starts came in 2018, when Cole was with the Astros).

“The strengths of this Cleveland lineup are a lot of good hitters,” Cole said. “Obviously, Jose Ramírez, perennial MVP candidate, Josh Naylor is a perennial top-of-the-league slugger.

“They put a lot of tough at-bats, they don’t walk a lot, they put a lot of balls in play. They don’t strike out a lot. They have high contact quality. The running game is high. So it’s a lot of action, and it forces you to play a clean brand of baseball, which they’re trying to impart a lot of pressure on.”

Stroman back

The Yankees, who carried 11 pitchers and 15 position players for the ALDS, are carrying 12 pitchers and 14 position players for this round. That opened a spot for righthander Marcus Stroman, who was left off the ALDS roster.

Stroman isn’t slated to start in this series — Clarke Schmidt will start Game 3 in Cleveland, followed by Luis Gil in Game 4 — and instead will have an undefined role out of the bullpen.

“He’s a big reason why we’re here,” Aaron Boone said. “The consistency of our starting rotation this year is a big reason why we’re division winners. He was a big part of that. He stayed ready.

“I felt like his live [batting practice session] last week when he threw was good, and I just felt like he deserved to be on there.”