Gerrit Cole's stunning decision to avoid Rafael Devers indicative of bigger problems
It was a single plate appearance in a season full of thousands of them. It won’t cost the Yankees a spot in the playoffs. Gerrit Cole won’t be stripped of his Cy Young Award. On Sunday, the Yankees will be back here again, attempting to take the series from the Red Sox.
But it still felt so big, and so bizarre, and after the Yankees' 7-1 loss to the Red Sox on Saturday afternoon, it prompted a slew of troubling questions.
Cole was cruising when Rafael Devers strode to the plate with one out in the fourth; the ace hadn’t allowed a single hit and had needed only 33 pitches to get through three innings. But instead of attacking the Red Sox third baseman — a player who, yes, has owned Cole throughout his career but is battling shoulder injuries and is mired in a September swoon — Cole put up four fingers and showed Devers the way to first. Devers looked back at plate umpire Marvin Hudson, face knotted in confusion, but took his base.
And then everything fell apart.
The Red Sox scored three runs in that inning and four more in the fifth off Cole. “Just mentally and physically, I didn’t get the job done,” he said. “That human element came into play.”
Afterward, everyone was wondering why one of the best pitchers in baseball would intentionally crack open the window to opportunity, to momentum and to his own intrusive thoughts. Some of the reasoning ended up being troublesome. More than that, it pointed to some glaring issues that the Yankees need to address immediately.
Aaron Boone said it was a failure of communication. Before the game, they had discussed taking a more “aggressive” approach and putting Devers on base if it seemed to be strategically helpful. “We were in alignment” about it going into the game, Cole said.
But when the Yankees scored a run in the bottom of the third, Boone wanted to switch gears. “Obviously, I didn’t communicate that to him well enough,” Boone said, and Cole rolled with the original plan. The manager had the opportunity to reverse Cole’s decision but opted not to do so.
Cole said he knew the bullpen was short and that one of the priorities was going deep in the game. He had struck out Devers 15 times in 41 previous at-bats, but Devers had a .341/.438/.951 slash line against Cole and had homered against him eight times. “We were going to pitch very carefully to Devers and potentially not throw him any strikes,” Cole said. So why waste any when four fingers would do?
Meanwhile, Austin Wells said he wasn’t even in those discussions (let’s not act as if it’s a rookie catcher’s job to second-guess a staff ace, but it might’ve helped if someone had . . . you know, mentioned the literal game plan to him). In short, a few small things went wrong before everything did.
“Clearly, it was a mistake,” Cole said. Devers has “cost us games in the past. As somebody that just wants to win, you’re open to anything that might be able to put you in a better position.”
Cole knows what it means to compete at an elite level. He knows what it takes for a baseball team to be successful. He is cerebral and regimented and passionate about winning. He was, on Saturday, willing to check his ego at the door by conceding that base, thinking it was for the greater good.
But the thing is, no one needs Gerrit Cole to do that right now. No one needs this level of overthinking. Right now, the Yankees need players who believe they’re the best in the world and who are willing to challenge anyone and everyone else to prove them wrong. They don’t need to be giving up bases and mental real estate to a player who hasn’t homered since Aug. 25 and who is hitting .205 with a 52 OPS+ in September.
That’s not just a Cole issue, either. Despite sporting the best record in the American League (86-63), the Yankees are 36-41 since mid-June. Their offense has stalled of late despite having two of the best hitters in baseball toward the top of their lineup. Their roster sports an MVP frontrunner in Aaron Judge and two possible Rookie of the Year candidates in Wells and Luis Gil. Other than this outing against the Red Sox and an earlier one against the Mets, Cole has been Cole since his return from the injured list: dominant and dependable.
But moves like Saturday’s leave room for intrusive thoughts. When Cole takes the mound in the playoffs, he has to believe he can get anyone out. When the Yankees step into the box, they have to believe they can hit rockets to the moon. If it works out, great. If it doesn’t, at least you didn’t beat yourself.
None of this is to say that alternative strategies are bad or that the Yankees are “soft.” But there is a time and a place for everything, and right now, it feels as if this team could benefit from a little less thinking and a lot more conviction. It’s Game 149; let the muscle memory take over once in a while. You’re up by a run in the fourth inning; tell Devers to go ahead and try to get a hit, and if he hits one 500 feet, believe you can punch your way out of a tie game.
“It was just a rough day,” Cole said, mouth downturned and grim. “I didn’t pitch well enough to win the game."
Technically, he’s right. But the biggest sin on Saturday was the one time he didn't pitch at all.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
