If Gerrit Cole can't deliver a win, who can?
Gerrit Cole of the New York Yankees walks to the dugout after the fourth inning against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
As the Yankees slip further into oblivion during this lost season and Gerrit Cole keeps trudging up the mound for another try at delaying the inevitable, I can’t help but think back to his introductory news conference in 2019.
It was a December afternoon in the Bronx, but Hal Steinbrenner looked as if he already had won the World Series simply by giving Cole a nine-year, $324 million contract. When Steinbrenner was asked what had to happen to make Cole worth that record sum, he didn’t hesitate to answer.
“We need to win some world championships,” the beaming Steinbrenner said. “And I believe we’re going to do that — sooner rather than later.”
Championships? With an s?
“Plural,” Steinbrenner replied.
With Cole's fourth season in pinstripes winding down, such a comment sounds ludicrous now. The Yankees’ ace was pummeled by the Red Sox in an 8-1 loss on Saturday, and the World Series has never seemed further away for baseball’s most storied franchise.
Forget those multiple championships. At the moment, Steinbrenner would be thrilled with the third wild-card spot, and there’s close to a 0% chance of that happening either. If Cole couldn’t prevent the Yankees (60-63) from getting steamrolled for a season-high seventh straight loss, they can forget about any significant rebound in these next 39 games.
Cole is never at a loss for words, but he still had trouble finding the right ones to describe the current malaise.
“It’s tough,” he said. “It’s, uh, I don’t recall experiencing anything like this before in my career. How you handle adversity and how you get through it is really ultimately how you’ll be judged.”
Statistically speaking, Cole has been one of the best and most durable pitchers in baseball since signing that contract. But any thought of Aaron Boone & Co. plowing through this adversity was a fantasy even before Cole delivered his first pitch Saturday. And once Luis Urias — Boston’s No. 9 hitter — drilled a first-pitch grand slam in the second inning, the Yankees got another humiliating slap of reality.
Cole entered Saturday as one of the American League’s Cy Young Award favorites, perhaps the frontrunner, with a 2.76 ERA in his first 25 starts (and he had allowed two or fewer runs in 19 of those starts). Leave it to the Red Sox, of all teams, to put a serious dent in that pursuit. Urias’ slam and a two-run homer by No. 8 hitter Connor Wong pumped Cole’s ERA up to 3.03, only a tick better than the Twins’ Sonny Gray (3.04) — otherwise known as the pitcher who couldn’t hack it in New York.
Cole had been the only bright spot in this miserable Yankees season and fittingly was their lone All-Star to make it to Seattle (Aaron Judge had to stay home for his toe rehab). To watch the Red Sox use him for batting practice for four innings, however, was a sobering reminder that this team is officially cooked.
It was Cole’s shortest outing of the season and the most runs he’s surrendered. Urias’ 404-foot slam was only the second one allowed by Cole in his career; the Dodgers’ Curtis Granderson hit the other one off him in 2017 during his Pirates tenure.
That 92-mph cutter to Urias was the pitch that continued to haunt Cole afterwards in the clubhouse, though loading the bases against the bottom half of the Sox order set up the big blow. Considering how pathetic the Yankees are offensively, a 4-0 deficit was basically game over, even in the second inning. Cole’s frustration signaled that, even if he didn't come right out and say it.
“The swing that Urias made was the key to the game,” Cole said. “And what an incredible swing.”
What else was there to say, really? The Yankees had only one hit off Sox starter Kutter Crawford, and that was Judge’s solo homer with one out in the sixth. Short of Cole throwing a shutout, this was destined to be an L regardless. The fact that Cole delivered his worst performance of the season with the Yankees clinging to the playoff cliff by the fingernails of one hand underscored what a futile exercise these final six weeks are shaping up to be.
Boone went to the Managing 101 handbook Saturday morning by revealing that he had a clubhouse meeting with the team after the previous night’s 8-3 loss to the Sox. The timing was no coincidence, of course, as Cole was scheduled to pitch the following afternoon, giving Boone’s pep talk an optimal shot at making a positive impact (or at least getting credit for a potential W).
But nothing can save these Yankees. Not a hobbled Judge on one foot, and not even a $324 million ace who had the inside track to his first career Cy Young Award.
Cole is likely to have another six years in the Bronx — he can opt out after 2024, but it’s a no-brainer for the Yankees to void it by tacking on a 10th season for another $36 million — so Steinbrenner’s dream of multiple titles remains technically alive.
The way the future is looking, however, it wouldn’t be a smart bet. Cole wasn’t going to change that Saturday, but these desperate Yankees have a much shorter-term focus.
“We got to figure out how to win tomorrow,” Cole said. “That’s really our only objective.”
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.
